We have a Fourth of July parade here. It was revived by the mayor almost two decades ago now, and it has become one of the amenities of living in Alameda. On this one day, all over town, strangers say hello, people greet each other cheerfully and chat, most everyone is in good spirits, and the best elements of our nature emerge.
The parade route connects the two main residential districts in town, starting on Park Street then wending its way west, via leafy Central Avenue, to Webster Street where it ends.
There were over 150 different entrants in the parade, and it can be any and every body. They hand out a newsprint program with an official sounding “order of the march,” numbered sequentially, which numbers the entrants are supposed to place visibly on their vehicles or selves, so you can look them up in the program. And the order always get screwed up.
It’s a tradition now. They even practiced a little CYA in the program this year by stating “As parade entrants are added up to the last minute, the Order of the March is subject to change.”
Boy, is it ever. But that’s okay – it’s even part of the charm. Entrants drop out. New entrants not in the program come in with an “A” added to their number — sometimes they are out of sequence, too, and that is all right. We all still applaud them, and they smile and wave back.
“Happy Fourth of July!”
People in the parade toss hard candy to the kids, and jump off their floats to pass out flyers and leaflets for their businesses and churches and causes. Some of them hand out little cardboard fans with wooden handles for the heat, all decorated with their name and logos.
At the very front came the color guard, followed by a children’s drum corps, I think in tie-dyed shirts. Then the local dignitaries such as the mayor, riding in a horse-drawn carriage, followed by classic old convertibles for city council members and state legislators and senators. Even politicos from other districts come, making me suspect I’ll get a chance to vote for them some day soon. But whether or not they get our votes, on this day we all wave, and sometimes applaud, and call out, “Happy Fourth!”
We get kung fu classes (marching along in in rows, then stopping to assemble for kicking and chopping routines) and peace action networks and local realtors (one on a float with a house-frame they busily painted — a fixer-upper, presumably) and church bands and guys who convert their riding lawn mowers into little amusing vehicles. Last year a guy managed to combine his with an easy chair. He reclined for the whole 3.5 mile parade route, in his motorized lazy boy, under an attached umbrella, buzzing along like a recumbent potentate, waving to the assembled crowd.
We think this year he might have been the guy who devised the two red “tilt-a-hurl” rides. They seemed to be miniaturized versions of the popular carnival ride, the tilt-a-whirl, spinning in circles, weaving back and forth from curb to curb. We laughed and clapped and waved at them, too — but it was more of a challenge for them to return our greetings, weaving and spinning like crazy waterbugs as they were.
We usually have more school bands; this year only one marching band came, but this was mitigated some by the local Mexican restaurants which had their own festive floats and joyous bands. And a few entrepreneurial rock bands on the back of flatbed trucks come by, rocking forth for a raucous Fourth.
And there is always the same very distinguished looking gentleman in full Scottish garb (and sporting the stars and stripes) who plays the bag pipes.
“Happy Fourth!” people in the parade call out, waving to the crowd.
“Happy Fourth!” the crowd smiles and waves back.
Tomorrow I’ll pull together a few more notes, and I’ll try to bug my wife to get me some of the pictures she took, to post them. Until then, a belated:
Happy Fourth!
🙂
It’s almost like being there.
Wait’ll you see the pictures.
(Speaking of which, I have a tough time making out the image w/your name — is it a pendant?)