Associated Press, 07/04/99
BOSTON - It was the century's final Fourth of July, and the city celebrated Sunday with a gala concert featuring Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Seiji Ozawa conducting the 1812 Overture and a spectacular fireworks show.
The lengthy pyrotechnics finale drew raves from the nearly 500,000 people who watched from the grassy Esplanade or from boats bobbing on the Charles River.
"Everything was beautiful,'' sighed 45-year-old Cynthia Searsy of Memphis, Tenn.
Cathy Kennison, 36, from Celina, Ohio agreed the fireworks were magnificent.
"It's like they danced in the sky,'' she said.
The traditional Boston Pops concert, now in its 70th year, included swing and patriotic tunes conducted by Pops conductor Keith Lockhart and country hits performed by singer Trisha Yearwood.
Later, as the crowd waved flags, Ozawa and Lockhart donned Red Sox jerseys and danced arm-in-arm on the stage to "Stars and Stripes Forever.''
Lockhart said he was excited to share the podium with Ozawa, who recently announced he was leaving the BSO after 25 years.
"It's a great opportunity to honor him and to call attention to his leadership and to expose him to the largest event that we do,'' he said. "This concert, as it stands, is inherently special and important. Boston's celebration is central to the country's understanding of (the fourth).''
During a choral performance titled, "With Voices Raised,'' a reading by U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of words composed in 1963 by his late brother, President John F. Kennedy, drew a standing ovation from some.
"Our most basic common link is that we inhabit this small planet'' he told the cheering, jubilant crowd.
Many made long journeys or woke at the crack of dawn to attend the world-famous celebration. For Emil Kannengieszer, coming to Boston for the Fourth wasn't just a tourist's treat, but fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
"I always watched this on TV,'' said the 61-year-old retiree from Abington, Pa., as he waited for the concert and fireworks display over the Charles. "I told my wife, `Someday before I die, I want to see this.'''
Matt Griffes, 23, said he stayed up all night after driving to Boston from his home in Winooski, Vt. He got in line at 4:20 a.m.
"It's the best Fourth of July Party anywhere,'' Griffes said.
Emergency medical workers were prepared with seven first-aid stations for the sticky, humid weather that reached into the low 90s across most of Massachusetts.
Boston's Emergency Medical Services spokesman Tom Lyons said about 12 concertgoers were taken to local hospitals during the day, mostly suffering from dehydration and heat-related ailments. He said none of the cases were serious.
Boston police also reported a safe Fourth, with no major problems with the Esplanade crowd.
Elsewhere in the state, other communities were enjoying their own July Fourth celebrations with barbecues, family get-togethers, local fireworks shows and even a recreation of the passage of the Declaration of Independence at the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy.
In Needham, Rev. Bob Bowers planned a cookout at his mother's house for 15 children exposed to radiation released by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, in the former Soviet Union.
The kids were part of a group of 144 children sickened by the 1986 accident spending a month in Massachusetts.
"It's going to be their first experience of an American cookout and fireworks,'' said Bowers, a priest at St. Agatha's Roman Catholic church in Milton. "It's an all-American meal.''
Some people spent the holiday at work, most in tourist or food-related jobs.
In the western Massachusetts town of South Hadley, ice cream shop employee Sara Arsenault was surprised at how few people were stopping in at McCray's Country Creamery for a treat.
"Usually it's packed on a Sunday afternoon,'' said Arsenault, 18. "I think maybe they're all picnicking.''
And there were a few people who just couldn't get into the feel-good spirit of the Fourth.
At Bart's Homemade in Northampton, 21-year-old ice cream scooper Zina Hall refused to jump on Sunday's patriotic bandwagon, because she thought the nation oppresses women and people of color.
"I don't want to celebrate a day that memorializes that,'' she said.
