Hi everyone,
Happy (belated) Fourth of July!
I hope you enjoyed the day.
I chilled out at home. My cats had surgery the day before yesterday and are on the mend. It was nice to sit with them and watch patriotic programming.
Lake Placid’s Fourth of July is always special. We have fireworks, an old-school hometown parade, and the Olympic Center is draped with a flag in celebration.
In previous years, the Fourth was special for me because I could skate on the 1932 rink at 9 pm and hear the fireworks while I skated. Often, it was just Mr. Protopopov (rest in peace) and me, as everyone else was taking the evening off.
When windows were added in later years, we could see glimpses of the fireworks. I remember standing on the end of the rink, watching them light up the velvety night sky.
Years before that, though, one of my best-received programs would be a very patriotic one - Yankee Doodle Dandy.
The concept for the program came from my mom. I loved the music from George M!, the Broadway show celebrating George M. Cohan’s contributions to Broadway and popular culture, and she thought Yankee Doodle would be an excellent choice for a program.
I also watched the 1942 film of the same name, starring James Cagney as Cohan. I was determined to capture Cagney’s choreography (based on Cohan’s signature stiff-legged dancing style) and adopted some of his choreography to the ice, including the stiff-legged step.
You’ve heard Cohan’s music before, even if you’ve never heard of him.
He was known as the “Man Who Owned Broadway” in the decade before the First World War, and not only wrote Yankee Doodle Dandy but other American classics.
So, I got the program choreographed with a special touch. At the program's climax, I would retrieve an American flag and skate with it, holding a long spiral down the length of the ice.
The first time I completed the program, I was 12 and performing at an ice show at Palisades Center’s rink. The four-story mall in Nyack, NY, was a frequent haunt; I was a junior coach and practiced there several times a week, so it was like skating on home ice.
The program went very well, considering it was my first performance. The handoff of the flag, where I would skate to the boards and grab the flag from the person holding it (usually my mom), was always stressful. I had to time it right to get the flag, flip it so it would stream behind me, and take several quick, fast, powerful crossovers to place the spiral so I was facing the audience.
But it was worth seeing the crowd’s reaction—there was always a huge roar when the audience saw the flag, and applause erupted as I began my spiral, the flag rippling over my head.
I wasn’t Michelle Kwan, and I wasn’t that good yet—I had just started landing my axel jump—but no one seemed to care because of the memorable concept. I would be asked to reprise the program at other rinks and perform it two years later in Lake Placid during the summer ice show finale.
Thanks, Mom!
When I got off the ice, there was a crush of people by the exit, and amongst congratulations, I saw an elderly man wearing a veteran’s cap standing nearby, looking intently at me.
He approached me, gesturing at the flag I had draped loosely over my arm.
‘Can I have that?’ he asked, and, taken aback, I nodded, handing him the well-used flag.
I’ll never forget how he received it - tenderly, reverently even. He folded it correctly with great precision and care, so it was a triangle.
I could see memories, pride, and love of country shining in his eyes.
‘It’s a symbol of our country. Always take good care of it,’ he instructed, then left.
I didn’t think anything of it, but now, I realize what he was saying.
The Fourth isn’t just about hot dogs, fireworks, and a day off work - it’s about celebrating our national identity. We are still fortunate to live in America.
Veterans make the ultimate sacrifice, and to them, the flag is more than a piece of fabric—it’s a sacred thing, representing our beautiful and fragile democracy.
It’s easy to forget that.
I’m ashamed to say I often took the Fourth of July for granted. Now, with no 9 pm sessions anymore and getting too old to skate with a flag, I think wistfully of the ‘old days’ but also with hope for the future.
And I still think of that veteran folding the Stars and Stripes and his reminder to take care of the flag and all it entails. We all should.
Lake Placid Skater Recommends:
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Every fourth of July, I watch Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Starring James Cagney, who was, until that point, best known for playing gangsters, the film celebrates the life and career of Broadway legend George M. Cohan. Cagney brought a bouncy vitality to the role, which he considers one of his best films.
The highlight for me is always the Yankee Doodle Dandy number. Cagney is an impressive dancer (he started his career in vaudeville, dancing in chorus lines), and the number includes not only Yankee Doodle but another Cohan-written standard, Give my Regards to Broadway. You can see the dance here:
The film is incredibly patriotic by design - it started filming the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, and according to star Rosemary DeCamp, “Throughout that picture, we all worked in a kind of patriotic frenzy, as though we feared we may be sending a last message from the free world…”
They also held a war bond benefit for the film, raising over $5 million for the U.S. Treasury Department.
Cohan’s contributions to the American spirit and war effort were multiple. In addition to Yankee Doodle Dandy, he wrote the songs You’re a Grand Own Flag and Over There, which was written in 1917 when America entered World War 1. He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to American morale. And if not for Cohan, we may never have gotten this Golden Girls moment.
As for Cagney, he won an Academy Award for his performance, and even Cohan said of his performance, "My God, what an act to follow!"
You can watch the film on Hulu with a Premium Subscription or rent on services like YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Thanks for reading - talk to you again soon!