Once upon a time, I wrote this post which will tell you much more about me and the 4th of July than you will ever want to know. And I posted pictures of that celebration, much smaller than our wont. And this year, what with homecomings and fevers, and new rooms and old dogs – there’s just been a lot going on, so the celebration was much smaller. But always, I love the 4th and the waving of our clean and fine flag and the festive air of gratitude and freedom. Fireworks? Not so much. I don’t go to the “Stadium of Fire” specifically because I figured its title would eventually become literal – which it nearly did this year. And I’m not much for people who populate the streets for the parade and leave a trail of wrappers and drink bottles behind them when they leave.
I only mention these things because the 4th is a human celebration. Not really a holiday – unless you factor “In God We Trust” into it, along with serious gratitude.
In thinking about all this, and about how I can’t seem to sit out a 4th, even when some of us spend a few hours of it at InstaCare, I decided to show you the old times: back when we had children and our neighbors had children, and the celebration in our yard was huge and exciting and LOTS of people brought food.
Thus, especially for my friends in England and South Africa and perhaps in other places, a look at America’s Independence day on the grass roots level:
In our town, we have dozens of events, almost none of which I even know about. But here, you see The Children’s Parade which happens a few days before the 4th – a safe and wonderful little parade, right down the same street the Big Parade uses – and kids on bikes and in costume and pulling wagons are joined by dressed down high school bands to make a Real Big Deal.
Next comes the Balloon Festival. For three mornings, literally by dawn’s early light, the balloon riders congregate in Fox field and roll out their great, colorful balloons. Above, you see Gin, her first time in uniform, ready to march in her first parade. We always run into neighbors and friends at this thing. And there’s a pancake breakfast in the parking lot of the school district offices.
These pages are straight out of my massive library of photo albums. I’m scanning every page so that I can make Blurb books out of them. But I’ll explain that in another post. The field seems wide and empty when they begin – literally unrolling the miles of fabric, and then unfolding. Then they get out the heated-air blowers and fire up the fans, and the balloons begin to fill.
The body of the balloon, now seeming impossibly big and alive, begins to heave and pucker, gaining dimension, and it’s as if giant colored eggs are slowly growing up out of the ground. The noise of the fans is like thunder, and they always play Enya over the PA system behind it all – which only adds to the surreal quality of the morning.
We walk through a billowing forest of growing color and shape.
There is something so perfect about the filled, but still horizontal, bodies of these things. You can see the scale of it.
Then they begin to right themselves, rising off the turf slowly, gracefully, gigantic poems against the still dawning sky.
And then they break from the ground. I’ve seen insect hatches rise like this from the grass – first one, uncertainly climbing into the air, and then another. Like sky-bourne jelly fish. And then we are looking up at them, and they are no longer giants. Just color, now caught in the sun as it clears the high rims of the mountains.
This is the next year. Gin is now an old hand at Marching Band, and as we drive away to find a place to park for the parade, the balloons hover over the streets behind us, waiting their turn at playing fox and hare.
I don’t have pictures of the parade really. Just this one:
And this one. But we always used to sit right here, in front of Ginger’s historic house on Center. Ginger’s family, up at three in the morning—the legal territory-staking time—put out chairs and blankets and held them against all other comers till we got there. And Robert Redford used to watch the parade from the porch roof next door. It was a pretty sweet deal, and sometimes the parades were really pretty fabulous.
And they were always long, featuring every high school band within twenty miles, floats with beautiful (and mostly modest) girls – waving, waving – horses, open cars boasting politicians (some you’d never even heard of), the head car with the visiting celebrity (Stadium of Fire) as Parade Marshall – dance groups, theater groups, the Shriners, clowns, motor cycle police—dancing with their machines, military vehicles and veterans in uniform, pioneers with wagons, mule trains, Scottish pipe bands, church groups with floats – balloons and poppers and people hawking ice cream and drinks and tiny flags. Two hours of it.
Then we had the Great Friends and Neighbors carnival, complete with games, prizes, face-painting and feats of intellectual strength (name as many presidents and states as you can!). We even did burlap bag races and three legged races and egg carries and water games that didn’t bother anybody in that heat.
And last – but never least – the fireworks. (On this page, you get a bonus – two homeschooling pictures that have nothing to do with the 4th, but everything to do with freedom, liberty and personal responsibility.)
Fireworks always start with sparklers. Then we move on to the driveway and set fire to all kinds of Chinese trouble. But I don’t have pictures of the fountains. They seldom show up as anything but great searing gaps in the evening gloom.
So that’s the way it was for us, back in the days when there were children and energy. If I recover from this, I’ll add this year to the pile tomorrow. We hope that your holiday was full of family, fun, freedom and a certain thoughtfulness – and again, Long May We Wave.
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