Thirty years ago today, on the very block where City Paper is located, I got lost.

It was 1976—the Bicentennial. I was only 4 years old. I can't remember everything with perfect clarity, but I do have memory flashes of a city gone apeshit. I remember the El painted red, white and blue. Fire hydrants, too. I remember tall ships. Old City was Olde City. The whole city pretty much looked like the El station at Fifth Street: tacky, but fiercely patriotic.

As part of the festivities, Winston's Restaurant at the corner of Front and Chestnut streets hired my father's band to set up on the sidewalk and play rock songs all afternoon. His band was called The Shuttlebums, and the only reason I remember that is because my dad made their business cards out of thick slats of wood. (My dad was also a carpenter.) So my mom brought me down for the afternoon to watch the band play. My grandparents were also there, along with a stray aunt or two.

Back in 1976, there was—as there is today—a pedestrian footbridge connecting Front and Chestnut streets with Penn's Landing. But 30 years ago, the Moshulu was docked at the other end of that footbridge. (Now it's down the river a bit.)

When I was 4, I knew all about the Moshulu. My dad worked on the Moshulu.

He wasn't a full-time musician; his day job was working maintenance on the boat, which I thought was quite possibly the coolest thing ever. My dad worked on a boat! None of my friends could make such a boast.

Some days my mom would load me into the back of our black Dodge Dart and drive my dad to work. My first memory of downtown Philly is that drive down Second Street—right past the Corn Exchange Building where I'd be working as a newspaper editor 30 years later—ending at the Society Hill Towers, which I assumed were the tallest buildings on Earth. Then we'd shoot across to Delaware Avenue, where the Moshulu was docked. The ship was big and black and badass; it still looms large in my memory.

And my dad worked on it.

Even better: When you sat at one of the restaurant tables, the waitresses would bring you free popcorn, in a black wicker basket.

At some point in the afternoon of the Bicentennial, I looked toward the river and saw the top of the Moshulu.

I decided I wanted popcorn. So I wandered away and headed over the footbridge.

I wasn't alone; my Aunt Diane decided to go along with me. The only problem: My aunt was only 5 years old. (My grandparents had her a little late in life.) So at the epicenter of the busiest celebration in the history of our nation, we disappeared.

I don't think I truly appreciated the panic my parents must have felt until this year. My son is 4 years old right now, almost the same exact age I was then, and the thought of losing him in a crowd plunges electrified skewers into the center of my heart. There can be no worse feeling.

(Yesterday, I reminded my mom that it had been 30 years since I'd run away at the Bicentennial. Just the memory of it stopped her dead in her tracks. The pain was still there.)

So … yeah, my parents freaked. My grandparents, too.

Meanwhile, I was having a grand time at the Bicentennial. I led Diane over the bridge and up the gangplank into the Moshulu. I asked the host for a table for two. And he showed us to one. A waitress came over, and I asked for popcorn. And she brought it. God, I loved Philadelphia.

Of course, both the host and waitress probably assumed we were lost, and if a little popcorn kept us calm and happy until our parents arrived, all the better.

My grandfather was the one who figured out where we'd run off to. Like me, he has a mind for criminal behavior. And soon, we were rescued, and I was returned to my parents, who probably hugged and beat me at the same time. My 4-year-old self didn't see what the big deal was.

I just knew one thing, and I still believe it today:

I was lucky to be born in a city this great.

And not just because of the popcorn.