I’ve devoted most of the past year’s columns to looking forward to this moment: our nation’s semiquincentennial and our area’s connection to the nation’s founding. But now that it’s here — it might even be “today” as you read this — I’d like to take a moment to look back and reflect, and share something other than a historical highlight.
As a child, my family lived near my mother’s siblings in neighboring towns in Bergen County, and consequently I was close to my cousins. We spent a lot of time together, especially during the summer when school was out.
While we spent a lot of time playing, as we grew, we also engaged in creative activities together.
One of those activities was the annual Fourth of July cake decoration. This began probably in the early- to mid-1960s, when one of the adults brought a sheet cake decorated as an American flag to our families’ Fourth of July picnic.
We “kids” decided that we could make similar themed desserts, and so the annual cake decorating event began. Each year, we would plan our design days in advance, then bake and build, and finally unveil our work of art at dessert time.
Some of the early cakes were also flag cakes, but using a variety of edible and nonedible items to create the necessary red stripes and white stars on a field of blue.
But then, as we learned our American history, each year we became more creative. One cake was a “Washington Slept Here” bed. Another was the Washington Monument. We crafted from cake the Capitol, the Liberty Bell, and the Old North Church, complete with lights in the belfry.
The final offering in the decade-plus of cakes was for the Bicentennial, the nation’s 200th, in 1976. We constructed an Uncle Sam out of cardboard tubes and rolls of papier-mache used for setting bones. My father was a physician.
Uncle Sam stood more than 3 feet high, behind a “map” of the U.S. with “Happy 200th!” on it, made, naturally, of cake. He held a flag in his right hand, which waved side to side at variable rates of speed, controlled by a model railroad transformer.
It was quite a production. I’m sure we would not have won any prizes for flavor, but they were definitely unique and American — our teenage expressions of national pride and creative celebration.
But I also remember that in one of the early years, when we were not as deft at creating clever cakes, we had a disaster. The blueberries, blackberries and raspberries got mushed together, as did much of the cake icing, and sections of the cake broke apart.
We pivoted and served a messy purple cobbler-type dessert of cake, berries and icing. It wasn’t beautiful or unique, but it was very tasty and enjoyed by all.
Flash forward 50 years or so, and here we are at 250. I don’t bake themed cakes anymore, and I don’t see my cousins nearly as often.
But I love that I still live in New Jersey, and I am deeply proud of my home and community here in Ewing and Central Jersey, where I’ve lived for almost 50 years. My understanding of and familiarity with history are deeper and richer than they were, and the years and lived experiences have given me a much greater perspective on this moment in time.
In all honesty, I’m personally struggling with the 250th. My pride in being an American has been tested in ways I never dreamed possible.
People I know and care for have been threatened for essentially just being. Institutions I respected and relied on are either gone or greatly compromised. Respect, honesty, and a shared commitment to the greater good and our humanity are fleeting.
The division tearing apart the fabulous “creation” that is America is not necessarily new, but it is new to me, and so very upsetting. It is difficult to celebrate when so many are hurting and fearful.
And yet I know that we, as a nation and as a people, have so very much to celebrate. I yearn and pray for the divisions to melt, for tolerance and acceptance to spread, and for the promise of America to rise and be restored.
In short, for us to embrace, become and enjoy that messy, delicious purple cobbler-cake.
Wishing you all a purply, delicious 250th Fourth!
Helen Kull is an advisor with the Ewing Township Historic Preservation Society.
