Here’s a Fourth of July tradition you don’t see much these days. It’s interesting to imagine what the Fourth was like when there were people around who remembered the Red Coats.
“BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise).
This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. ”
Moby Dick, Herman Melville