Every year in late June, Custer's Last Stand is reenacted on the high plains of Montana. When Custer led out the 7th Cavalry in 2003 - the year I witnessed it - the audience stood and cheered with turbo-charged patriotism.
In 1966, I bought my parents a carriage clock for their silver wedding anniversary. It was last wound 30 years later, in December 1996, the month my father died.