The United States Bicentennial summer of 1976 found me daydreaming of the big leagues and my first girlfriend from behind the wheel of a dented '68 Toyota Corona.

The Vietnam War and Watergate scandal were in America's rearview mirror along with stagflation, "Whip Inflation Now!" buttons and an economic recession. At 16, I was just another distracted Las Vegas kid trying to navigate the world, but the elaborate buildup to the official celebration of America's adoption of the Declaration of Independence shook me into a conscious state.

It was hard for many to love the country whose leaders had faltered and whose ideals had failed them, but even its fiercest critics found ways to admire the celebration as it picked up steam.

More than the colorful parades and newly minted Bicentennial quarters and commemorative stamps, New York Harbor was filled with international ships and more than a dozen spectacular tall sailing craft; the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage led by volunteers made its way to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; the American Freedom Train traveled more than 25,000 miles to bring the nation's historic documents to we the people.

Those big league and girlfriend dreams eventually faded. But looking back, I don't remember a single event feeling segregated along political lines or religious ones, for that matter. Republican President Gerald R. Ford made a point of setting a grand welcome after so much strife. It was a high point in his abbreviated term as president.

One look at our nation's foot-dragging civil rights record and at times misguided foreign policy made us an easy target for critics. The brilliant orator and former slave Frederick Douglass is noted for calling slavery our country's "original sin," but I would also add our mistreatment of Indigenous peoples to the top of the list of deep transgressions.

Despite our many character faults — egotistical bluster not least — we remained the place to be with a Statue of Liberty that symbolized something special to the rest of the world. International dignitaries took time in the summer of '76 to honor the United States, I suspect, without many arms twisted or tongues held. The Bicentennial summer was a reminder even to the cynics of the best of America.

Suffice to say the last half century has had more than its share of civil tumult, political scandal and avoidable military conflict. Polls tell us our trust in government and level of optimism in our future have reached new lows. Like so much else in the era of President Donald Trump, it reflects the words and actions of the man who continues to literally and metaphorically take a wrecking ball to the White House.

His administration's hyperpartisanship and ineptitude have even managed to sully the 250th anniversary celebration, a moment that cries out for common ground, community and a coming together as a nation. The president's unabashed glorification of greed is unprecedented. It's as if Gordon Gekko won the White House.

By making the celebration mostly about himself, as reflected in his politically themed traveling road show and prolific use of his own likeness on public buildings, he increasingly plays the role of a spray-tanned Big Brother. Now exposed almost daily for lining his own family's pockets, he's destined to be remembered as America's authoritarian grifter-in-chief.

Even with all that, and I admit that's a lot, it doesn't mean we should write off the nation's 250th celebration — maybe if only for the sake of taking time to count our blessings.

These days it is a common refrain that you can't get Americans to agree on anything. Not even leaving religion out of politics and keeping pineapple off pizza. With that in mind, here's an anecdote.

On Wednesday at Costco, an American experience if ever there was one, I pushed my cart through crowded aisles stacked high with audacious abundance. The crush of customers was a reminder of the broad ethnic diversity that's the true strength of our country.

Somewhere between the piles of produce and the laundry detergent aisle, I shared laughs with strangers who were also lost in the Costco maze. News reports all week had been recounting the wide-eyed disbelief expressed by World Cup fans from distant lands at the scale of the American shopping experience.

"They couldn't believe how big everything is," one man said, "and how much is available."

I was heartened by our collective acknowledgment that, for all our flaws, we are fortunate to live in such a place. Our country remains a land of plenty — even if not everyone shares in it.

I went home and unfurled the flag a couple days early, if only to remind myself that the country belongs to no president or corporate cabal, but to all of us: the courageous ancestors we never knew and — most importantly — the future generations we will not live to meet.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.