The past five Independence Days, neighbors on Via Azor in San Clemente's gated Marblehead community have gathered outside the home of Dr. Stan Wasbin at 11 a.m. to celebrate the Fourth of July a bit differently than most.
There are no fireworks, at least not at that time of day. An audience of 20 to 30 people recites the Pledge of Allegiance and hears a reading of a two-page essay the physician has written, describing events that unfolded in or around Boston leading to the American Revolution.
Then a tall man in a white wig and 18th-century attire steps forward and becomes Thomas Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence.
Monday will mark the sixth straight year that Wasbin has performed the Declaration of Independence on July 4. He will follow it up, as usual, with a history quiz, offering prizes for the correct answers.
"I just wanted to make the Fourth of July and Independence Day come alive for the kids, friends and family, neighbors," Wasbin said of the hourlong celebration.
He doesn't invite the general public, lest he risk disrupting his neighbors' quiet holiday.
Reaction to his Jefferson act has been encouraging, he said. The first year, a friend, originally from New Zealand, was impressed. "I've done everything there is on the Fourth of July and this is the most meaningful, the most special Fourth of July I've ever had," Wasbin quoted him as saying.
Another spectator, Sheila Forman, said, "Dr. Stan reads the Declaration of Independence with such passion and zeal, you think he really was one of our founding fathers."
Wasbin has taken his act outside Marblehead only once. Last year he performed at San Clemente Villas, an assisted-living retirement community. "A lot of the old World War II veterans were tearing up," he said. "It was beautiful."
The idea came to him years ago when he was surprised to hear that California students were being taught about Mexico's separation from Spain before learning about how America gained independence from England. He felt it should be reversed, and when he proceeded to quiz some children about U.S. history, he was surprised at what they didn't know.
"I grew up in Boston," he said. "My first 10 years were there. Everything was so much more alive there – the Freedom Trail, the Old North Church."
Why did he choose to portray Thomas Jefferson? "He was the one who wrote the Declaration of Independence," Wasbin said. "He was really one of the most radical when it came to thinking about the individual being that sovereign unit of society."
On Monday, he will try to take his audience back in time and see what the participants know.
"The easier I make the questions, the better they do," he said with a grin. "All I'm trying to do is make it come alive for the kids and for myself and other grown-ups."
A JULY 4 QUIZ
Q. True or false: Thomas Jefferson favored a strong national government.
A. False. "I am not a friend to a very energetic government. ... It is always oppressive," Jefferson said. And, "God send that our country may never have a government which it can feel." Jefferson expressed hope that the president would be limited to a single four-year term.
Q. Which country holds the record for the longest-lived republic?
A. United States
Q. True or false: All the founding fathers supported democracy.
A. False. The word "democracy" was equated with mob rule, something the founders feared. Even the most radical, Thomas Paine, never used the word in his influential pamphlet "Common Sense." Though Jefferson is widely hailed as the founder of the Democratic Party, he almost never used that term.
Q. Who died first, Jefferson or John Adams?
A. They both died July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson died a few hours earlier, a fact unknown to Adams, whose last words were "Jefferson lives."
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