“What effect will all this well-meaning cultural, environmental and athletic activity produce? As the optimistic descriptions washed over me, I had to remind myself that public celebrations of a national birthday can indeed be transformative: just look at centennial year. To author and historian Pierre Berton, it may have been “the last good year,” as he would subtitle his history of 1967 published in 1997, but to those of us who were very young in the Summer of Love, the centennial celebrations shone a warm light into our childhoods that we have carried with us through life.”