Uncle Sam's spirit not faded with years
| • | Fire in the sky |
| • | Always play it safe with fireworks |
| • | July Fourth fireworks |
| • | Fourth of July Calendar |
| • | What's open and closed |
Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Uncle Sam is down but not out. Just ask his wife.
Advertiser library photo • 1997
For 38 years, Gaylord Mercer marched in the annual Fourth of July parade in Kailua, often at the front of the old-fashioned celebration — and once with the clowns, which angered him quite a bit.
For 38 years, Gaylord Mercer marched in Kailua's Fourth of July parade. A broken leg last year brought an end to the tradition.
But he fell at his Hawai'i Kai home in May 2001, breaking his left femur in four places. Even though the leg has healed, he hasn't walked since, says his wife, Shirley Mercer. Marching in parades is out.
This morning at the Maunalani Nursing and Rehab Center in Kaimuki, where he has been for nearly a year, the 86-year-old Mercer will make an Independence Day comeback in a wheelchair.
Shirley Mercer says her husband of 41 years is excited by the opportunity to be Uncle Sam again, even if the parade is only down a hallway or two.
He takes this role seriously. Always has.
"Fiesty is right," she said. "More than fiesty. Not necessarily about the role, but to anyone who should be unpatriotic enough to suggest it was a silly thing to do."
Gaylord Mercer, a salesman all his life until 1997, got the patriotic part when a friend in the Honolulu office of the U.S. Treasury Department asked him to help with a savings bond drive.
 |
| Christine McCreary, at Fireworks Depot in McCully Shopping Center, was among vendors of fireworks to be used in backyard celebrations today. The number of fireworks permits sold this season increased significantly from last year. As of 4:30 p.m. yesterday, 119 permits were sold, compared with 89 in 2001. The total did not include permits sold before the close of business at satellite city halls at three shopping malls.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Mercer tried on the costume and never gave it back. He even grew his own beard, though mostly because he would sweat so much that the fake ones would fall off.
"He really enjoyed doing it so much, he started doing it himself," said his 78-year-old wife. "He used to go around at Christmastime to hospitals. He would go to schools. He would meet the elderly. It just grew and grew until he was doing all the parades."
Usually he would walk the length of the Kailua parade and then drive over to Pearl Harbor for Navy festivities. He would pass out flags and lead the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Since his fall, Mercer has dressed up as Uncle Sam just once.
Last November, for Veterans Day, Mercer handed out tiny U.S. flags to about 100 residents at the rehab center. Nurses lined up the wheelchairs and everyone got a flag, Shirley Mercer said.
Her husband has been looking forward to his Fourth of July come-back. It means as much to him as to anyone else — perhaps more.
"He never did this for pay," Shirley Mercer said. "It was always done out of his own heart. I wouldn't say he was rabid about it. He was just really sincere about his country and what it meant to him."
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
