The United States will mark the 250th anniversary of its nominal founding this July and as you’re reading this, wholesalers, retailers, and aspiring entrepreneurs are busily imagining, manufacturing, preparing, and/or ordering officially licensed semiquincentennial merchandise they hope to peddle for a profit as the celebration approaches.
Fifty years ago, America’s bicentennial was all the rage. Those extant at the time remember spectacular fireworks displays over most major cities on July 4th, 1976, tall ships sailing into New York City and Boston harbors, and the 26-car “Freedom Train” full of national memorabilia (including, among other things, a moon rock, Judy Garland’s dress from The Wizard of Oz, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pulpit and robes) that traveled nearly 26,000 miles through all 48 of the contiguous states. Some amateur investors began hoarding the bicentennial quarters the treasury department minted that year. And while their foresight hasn’t paid off as handsomely as they might have hoped, no one’s lost money, since at last look each of those now-50-year-old coins is still worth at least 25 cents. Today nostalgic types yearning for keepsakes of those events can occasionally find them at Goodwill stores, where Bicentennial coffee mugs or shot glasses often sell for as little as two dollars, or eight bicentennial quarters.
Human beings seem to have a fixation about numbers that end in zero. How else to explain the significance people associate with birthdays ending with that digit? After all, the difference between turning 29 and 30, 49 or 50, or 69 or 70 is only a year, but good luck finding a Hallmark card that says, “Happy Birthday, 49-year-old.”
Attaching significance to multiples of ten seems pretty random. Why aren’t people hung up on some other number, like 12, for example? Eggs are sold by the dozen; so are roses, bagels, and rolls of toilet paper. Cans of soda or beer are sold in half-dozens, and decent pastry shop owners often send regular patrons home with a baker’s dozen of doughnuts on Sunday mornings. There are 12 numbers on a clock face, and two 12-hour periods of time equals one day. Operating under the duodecimal system makes no less sense than society’s current fixation on Base 10.
Suppose the founding fathers had decided twelve was a more significant number than ten. America wouldn’t have had any centennial, sesquicentennial, or bicentennial celebrations. Instead, there’s have been ceremonies marking the fledgling nation’s first half-duodecade in 1848. But patriotic fervor in the United States would have peaked in 1920, on the occasion of the country’s 144th (Gross?) anniversary. There might be a few crackpot decimal system advocates insisting on referring to it as the Dozentennial, but like today’s Flat Earthers, they’d have been dismissed as lunatic fringers.
A society running on Base 12 would see 2026 as just another year. However, those born in 1954 would be marking a major milestone, the completion of their half-dozenth duodecade.
It’s a good thing the United States doesn’t use the duodecimal system. If it did baby boomers would have no chance to experience the patriotic gala surrounding a Gross National Celebration, because they didn’t exist in 1920, and few of them are likely to still be around in 2064.
Thankfully though, that’s not the case. If it were, the best boomers could do would be to take some commemorative Gross anniversary 1920 quarters down to Goodwill and purchase a vintage 1992 coffee mug, t-shirt, or refrigerator magnet. <
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