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Getting ramped up for July 4 festivities

Jonathan Mandell
CNN

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(CNN) -- Having just participated in the vote declaring the United States independent of Great Britain, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail in 1776, predicting that July day "will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival ... with pomp and parade; with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other."

John Adams turned out to be wrong -- about the date.

He was writing his wife about the second of July. The Declaration of Independence was released to the public two days later.

But Adams, the American revolutionary who became the second president of the United States, was largely right about the great anniversary festival that is the Fourth of July. Since the beginning -- albeit with many colorful variations -- it has been celebrated in much the same way across the nation: with picnics, parades and pyrotechnics. Only the scale has changed.

But Adams would surely be astounded at the change in scale. The population of the United States is now around 300 million, compared to around 2.5 million when the Adams was president.

These Americans are expected to eat at least 150 million hot dogs on the Fourth of July, a third of them with mustard, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council.

They are expected to buy around 700 million pounds of chicken during the week of July 4, "which is more than two pounds per person in the United States ... and 40 percent higher than during a normal week," says Richard L. Lobb of the National Chicken Council. "That will include about 900 million wing segments, or 50 percent more than normal."

Americans will also buy more than 190 million pounds of beef during a two-week period that includes July 4, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. This is not only more than average, it is also more than any other "popular grilling holiday" like Memorial Day or Labor Day.

Much of this will be barbecued, according to the National Barbecue Association. "We don't have any hard statistics about how much," admits Don McCullough, the association's executive director. "We do know that 87 percent of all Americans have grills at home, and that barbecuing has become much more popular in the last five years."

It will be accompanied by potato salad and/or potato chips. "We don't have any good data," says Matt Johnson of the United States Potato Board, "but we know it'll be a lot." And there is a 50 percent chance that it will come from a potato grown in either Idaho or the state of Washington, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The Fourth of July picnics will be topped off by more than 5 million gallons of ice cream, which is typical for any hot day in July, according to a spokesman for the International Dairy Foods Association.

More than 41 million are expected to travel away from home to eat all this food over the Fourth of July, according to the Automobile Association of America, even though this year's holiday falls on a Wednesday.

About 60 million Americans that don't usually do so are expected to display the flag, according to the Flag Manufacturers Association of America.

And in the evening they will enjoy the "illuminations" that Adams predicted. Nine hundred million dollars of fireworks were sold in the United States last year, nearly triple the amount of a decade earlier, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association. Most of the fireworks -- some 250 million pounds -- were used by individuals to celebrate the Fourth of July. Another 25 million pounds were used in public displays like one put on by Macy's in New York City, the largest in the nation, with 30,000 shells bursting 1,000 feet in the air.

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states," Adams wrote later in the letter. "Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory."

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