Every Ordinary Fourth - NYTimes.com Here we are in the high seas of summer, rounding the corner called the Fourth of July. Most years, it seems, we barely get a glimpse of it before changing tack and sailing on toward all those months that end in "ber." It would be nice to anchor here, to stretch the day into a week or a month, to see what the waves wash up and to learn the tides before the current carries us away. Do we, as a nation, eat more hot dogs on July Fourth than any other day of the year? What about potato salad and deviled eggs? Are there still legions of children hand-cranking ice cream, watching the pale gray slurry of rock salt and ice with appalling impatience while the grown-ups stand by recalling their own apprenticeship at the crank? This is a day for the historical re-enactment of Fourth of Julys past, if only the ones we remember from childhood. In a way, that is the point of fireworks in the dark, to recapture a childlike sense of awe and surprise. We watch with our reflexes, vulnerable to the boom and sizzle in the night sky. There is something self-evident about the Fourth of July. We know its origin and its meaning. Its iconography is straightforward, even if the text behind it - the Declaration - is complex. It retains a simplicity that resembles no other major holiday. It celebrates a vital principle, but it is lacking in rites and ritual. We set aside the day, which seems to include a bit of everything - family, patriotism, parades, and simply doing nothing. Yet you could say its significance can be found in the doings of any ordinary American day - something that's all too easy to forget until July Fourth comes along as a reminder.