...for 2026, when the Americans should be celebrating their 250th in the same manner as their Bicentennial.

So far, barely a whisper about it. No big project like the Freedom Train, any sort of National Visitor's Centre, big parade planned in DC or Philadelphia or Boston, nothin'.

Two years out of the Bicentennial, there were all sorts of bustle and plans, and things getting built, locos getting painted by the railroads, just lots going on and during very like times; Nixon, the end of Vietnam, double-digit inflation, fuel crisis, actually times were arguably harder.

But there still was a kind of optimism and the preparations were cheerfully put into train.

I guess that's all gone now. Everyone is too angry, too busy hating each other on the net, too entitled and childish to realise what they are letting go down the tubes. It's just embarrassing.