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+43+ FAYElTE COUNTY FOURTH OF JULY YESTERDAY was the two hundred and thirty-first Fourth of July to be celebrated in the United States since bells rang out in Philadelphia to celebrate the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in 1776. Actually, those first bells rang out on July 8, because although Congress passed the Declaration on the evening of the fourth, it was not publicly proclaimed until the eighth when, as John Adams wrote to a friend, bells pealed all day and all night and soldiers fired salutes on the Philadelphia common "notwithstanding the scarcity of powder." But ever since then we have celebrated Independence Dayan the fourth. In the 1970s I lived in a tiny German community called Round Top (population: 70) over in Fayette County, about halfway between Austin and Houston. The folks who lived there were notoriously sociable; in fact, a history of Fayette County published in 1910 said that "the town of Round Top is noted for the splendor of its feasts." The biggest feast of all was the Fourth ofJuly. It was even bigger than Schlletzenfest, the annual meeting of the Round Top Rifle Club, at which members shot at an iron target all morning, drank beer all afternoon, and danced all night. There was an old joke in Round Top about a local boy who was being prepared for confirmation in the Lutheran Church. One ofthe questions in the Lutheran catechism is 'What are the three great feasts of the Christian year?" to which the answer is "Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost." VVhen this young man was asked the question he unhesitatingly responded (in German), 'Weinachtfest, Schlletzen-

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