Leslie Gibson McCarthy

I attended my first-ever Cardinals game in the summer of 1974. It was either Girl Scout Night at the ballpark, or we had a visionary leader who serendipitously planned a troop outing on what would be one of the most epic days of a baseball legend’s career. “You could see history tonight,” my dad said as I was leaving. I had no idea. I was 11, and simply happy to finally get to see what all the fuss was about at the cavernous, concrete Busch Memorial Stadium.

Carlo Bruno, BS ’65, turned 100 January 28, making him one of the oldest alumni in the Washington University domain. The milestone was marked with a party at the Bethesda Hawthorn Place assisted living community in suburban St. Louis, attended by a few dozen family members and friends. He took it all in, as he typically does, with a clipboard of white paper and a couple of No. 2 pencils, ready to sketch whatever caught his eye.

Celebrating the Fourth of July holiday is a tradition nearly as old as the United States itself, as early Americans understood that commemorating the Declaration of Independence was important to establishing a national identity. With every community celebration, Americans became more united arounds their shared identity, values and purpose, says Abram Van Engen, the Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities and chair of Engish in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.