If you don't want to wage the battle for lawn supremacy, you can watch WBZ-TV Channel 4's coverage from 8 to 10 p.m. At 10, CBS nationwide (same channel here) picks up it for a concentrated "best of" hour. It’s difficult, Lockhart told us, in terms of “shaping the program, saying ‘Now, give us your best ten seconds,’’’ Still, the exposure can’t be beat and Lockhart says, “it’s a two-edged sword. We’re the only orchestra with a real broad national constituency because of the Fourth of July and the public celebration. We call ourselves ‘America’s Orchestra.”
   Your host for the second year running is Scottish-born comic and late night talk show host Craig Ferguson, who spent most of last year haggling for citizenship on the air. He got it and he's one proud peacock. He could be insufferable or insufferably funny.  Rascal Flatts? A big mainstream country group doesn't mean that much in our world - Boston is not Nashville - but it'll please mainstream America just fine. Our favorite Pops/4th moment: Cyndi Lauper danced all over the place, shout-screaming "Money Changes Everything" - America's real anthem, if you consider the title - and even grabbed Lockhart's butt. A trifle ... uh ... subversive.
   Look, the "Fourth of July Extravaganza" is no walk on the beach - all the lead up and then trying to get home. But the music and 25 minutes of fireworks - they seem to get better every year - will stir something within you. (Hopefully it won't make you think of bombs bursting in air over the Middle East.) And if you like having those emotions stirred with hundreds of thousands of others, stake that spot as close to the Hatch Shell as you can, as early as you can and have one huge communal experience. It is, of course, free. Note: They do a rehearsal on July 3d. You could do that too,with a bit less fuss, but less whiz-bang patriotics too.

Storrow Drive, www.july4th.org