July 2026
By Michele Miller
What’s What New Port Richey
The date wasn’t exactly creeping up on me. Even in these golden years I find myself trodding through, I still have the presence of mind to know that time passes – albeit a little faster these days.
Even so, the notice that there would be a gathering for my 50th high school reunion this year struck like a bolt out of the blue.
So we’re here…..already?
It was the summer of 1976. I had just graduated from Weymouth North High School. I was on the edge of 18. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album was all the rage. The country was gearing up for a Bicentennial Celebration, complete with a parade of Tall Ships into Boston Harbor, where it all started.
Arthur Fiedler would once again conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s free concert on the Esplanade, a tradition he started in 1929 to bring the music to the people. The Bicentennial concert would feature the traditional sing-along of patriotic tunes, fireworks, and cannons booming during Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, so loud that you could hear them in my suburban hometown across the bay where Abigail Adams was born.
In a few months, I would cast my first vote in the 1976 presidential election, the country still reeling, it seemed, since the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. The “I’m From Massachusetts – Don’t Blame Me” bumper sticker, boasting the independence of the lone state to vote for George McGovern, had yet to flake off my parents’ gray and black Delta 88 Oldsmobile.
Half a century has passed since. Here we are celebrating our nation’s Semiquincentennial, a mouthful of a word marking 250 years since the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.
This year’s Independence Day celebration comes with the small-town 4th of July feel we’ve adopted since moving to Florida 35 years ago.
Indeed, the City of New Port Richey’s Red, White, and Blue Hometown Extravaganza, traditionally held the weekend before July 4th so city workers and volunteers can spend the holiday with their loved ones, has proved to be a fine way to celebrate, featuring food-eating contests, bounce houses for the kids, food trucks, a free concert by the Pithlachascotee River in Sims Park, and a pretty spectacular fireworks display over Orange Lake.
There are some parallels, too, it seems. A high school reunion is in the works that I’ll likely skip, because to be honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of that place and not look back. And a midterm election coming up in November that looks to carry some weight that I plan to be here for because, well, some traditions, you just don’t break.
Happy Independence Day.
Now onward.
Michele Miller is the creator, editor, and content creator for the What’s What New Port Richey community website and biweekly newsletter, which has been up and running since June of 2020. Prior to that, she wrote “good news” stories, features, and columns while working as a reporter and photographer for the St. Petersburg Times/Tampa Bay Times. She resides in New Port Richey. Contact her at mmiller@whatswhatnewportrichey.com
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