We live in a little town in northern New Jersey and our big parade day is Memorial Day, so when it gets to be July 4th we head over to our friends' house a few towns over because they do BOTH Memorial Day and Fourth of July Parades. Interestingly, despite almost constant rain in between Memorial Day and July 4th, both parade days have looked like this -- sunny and perfect and great days for a small-town parade.
The first thing we must do is get good seats.
Right on the main street of town - -a few lawn chairs next to a potted plant with a flag in it, and we are ready for some fire engines.
Every town in the immediate vicinity sends over their trucks and puts the siren on high. Everyone is waving and smiling and the firefighters throw candy out at the crowd.
Over here! Throw us some Jolly Ranchers!!
If you owned a classic car you drove it. There was a lot of "A-OOO-GA!" honking going on.
It was especially fun when someone you knew marched by. Conor! Over here! (Fun for us, slightly mortifying for Conor. He is the Senior Patrol Leader for Troop 36 and so gets to march in front and we are Very Very Proud Of Him).
The marching band from the local high school marched and played, and the finale was by the Hawthorne Cabelleros, who were fabulous and loud and festive and in perfect step, and everyone LOVED them.
Well, unless you were two, and then you were pretty much just biding your time until they broke out the hot dogs.
Wherever you live, small town or big city -- if your fireworks are Macy's on the Hudson or sparklers in the back yard, if your parade marched down Fifth Avenue or Main Street, hope your Fourth was happy and noisy and sunny, and that sometime during the day, you had a really good hot dog. Happy Fourth, everyone.
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