Independence Day Ups and Downs

Up with parades in small towns! Flags galore – every lamp post sported the stars and stripes. 6,000 flags handed out by a local realtor. Flags of varying size glued or taped onto bicycles or stuck into headbands and shirt pockets and even gelled into young boys’ Mohawks. Candy tossed from every float, truck and tractor—stuffed into small mouths, little and big people-pockets, fanny packs, and finally, crushed by tires, feet and hooves to be swept up by the last “float” in the parade, the street sweeper. Transport of all sizes – live and mechanical. There were floats pulled by 4x4 pick-ups on steroids. The floats themselves carried hay bales, fake rockets, or lawn chairs filled with veterans, the Red Hat ladies, various citizenry representing various social and business enterprises…and a bazzilion ball players from barely-big-enough-to-field-a-glove to ready-to-graduate. There were a couple of tractor-trailers bedecked with banners, posters, flags and ribbons; every fire company in the County was represented, providing a lift in style for many of the younger ball players. There was a tractor brigade made up of 1930s through 1950 era farm tractors sponsored by the Silver City Museum. This was one of my favorite segments since the old Farmalls reminded me of my grandpa’s tractor, though these were much redder and shinier! And there was horsepower on the hoof. A group of horseback performers didn’t, except by accident when the mechanized horsepower following the troupe sounded its airhorn causing horse flesh to start and riders to grip the reins. Another favorite, though was the US Forest Service mounted firefighters and the mule-drawn water tank. Some of these may have been, as recently as a week ago, fighting real fires up in the Gila where mechanized horsepower couldn’t reach. All these paraders and more are in my Flickr slideshow , there are also two little videos of the parade route and of the horse-mounted performing group. (let’s hope the links hold this time!)

Down with parades as the vehicle for political statements! I have not seen many small-town parades, so maybe this is normal. But the buzz that I heard from neighbors and friends for the next couple of days would suggest that this one got a little more political than usual. Or maybe it was a little one-sided? Many flavors of republican or conservative, few flavors of liberal or democrat (not always the same thing regardless of your lean). Many opinions about who paraded and who wasn’t represented. Can’t say I was entirely thrilled with some of the points of view on parade or even that any political points of view were paraded at all, but you know, they were shooting people in Iran and currently seem to be doing so in China if the paraders’ viewpoints were not welcome. At least everyone here has the right to stand up and speak out in relative safety, other than a dirty look or two. On a lighter note, there were five – 5! – different men running for sheriff who had floats in the parade; floats with lots of very cute kids, very attractive young women, good music blaring or all of the above. Three of the 5 were together in a line.

Up with July 4th in the Park! I didn’t get to stay too long, but was there long enough to see…well, a little of everything and a little of everyone. Like the Blue festival, a full representation of the community. More food than you could taste if the day had room for several meals, snacks and appetizers. All the paraders, some still in their costumes military, hatted, sports or otherwise, wandering along looking at the food booths, the political booths (yep, here too), at the arts’n crafts booths, and at the “sign up here” booths, usually with raffles as temptation. Especially up with being hailed by several new friends and stopping to chat and hug and wish well for the weekend.

Up with good food and good company. We didn’t get to attend all of invitations on Saturday we had intended due to a family phone call in the morning that kept us close to home, but what we did attend, we certainly enjoyed. Then, we extended our celebration the next day with friends here at the house, tucked back into our outdoor room while it rained-sunned-rained-blew-stormed. When the rain went horizontal and started blowing into the recessed space, we gathered drinks, food and cushions and headed for the living room.

Up with fireworks – although on this note, Nutmeg would surely disagree. Giant blossoms of red-and-blue or green, with sparkles and bangs. Roman candles in brilliant white. And all viewed from our back patio. Uniquely, in my experience, just about everyone with a few dollars could buy and shoot fireworks. The law here says that anyone can set off fireworks…and I’m not talking about sparklers, but the streak-into-the-sky aerial fireworks…as long as they are within city limits. ?? But they can’t set them off outside of town, where so much of the vegetation is grasses. ??? Well, you can imagine no one paid any attention to municipal boundaries. So from our patio, we could see anywhere from four to seven or eight discrete fireworks displays going off in the skies over town proper during the course of an hour and half, as well as two or three separate displays going on right around, and behind, us. The skies were glowing. Nutmeg didn’t know in which direction to bark. We didn’t always know where to look. Oh! Look at that one…wait, you’re missing that one over there…wow, did you see the one behind…quick turn around, oh, too late, but wait, what’s that over there………