The weather is perfect - about 75ºF - and the sky is a startling blue. Often the morning of July 4th is rainy and humid, but today is stunning. Colors radiate from every surface as though freshly scrubbed.
Our town's Fourth of July parade is more of a series of events rather than a single, defined one. There is an annual fun run/walk that begins to pass by our house around 8:00 a.m. We've watched runners slogging through torrential downpours, but today is merely a pleasant jog down a sunny, tree-lined street. About 8:30, the kiddie parade passes by - a few dozen small children on tricycles, bicycles, or in arms with their parents, wobble carefully down the street to the applause of the spectators. We finish putting our tea and breakfast things on the porch, grab the dogs, and settle in for the main event.
At 10:00 a.m., sharp, the parade proper begins with a siren blare from one of the town police cars which clears the way of anyone foolish enough to still be standing in the street. Following the police vehicle come fire, rescue and emergency vehicles from our town and some of the surrounding communities, horns blasting, sirens screaming as they roll slowly down Main Street in gleaming red or yellow paint and mirror bright chrome. Volunteer firefighters and children seated on top of the vehicles toss candy to the crowd which prompts a scramble among the younger spectators. The honor guard and veterans come next, and without prompting, everyone stands respectfully as they pass.
What rolls by for the next hour and a half includes a delightful and eclectic mixture of just about anything on wheels, feet, paws, or hooves. There is a significant amount of farm equipment, including individual cadres of John Deere, Farmall, and Massey Ferguson tractors. In past years, some of these were so large that they would take up both sides of the street and knock off overhanging branches onto unwary spectators.
Homemade floats from the local school sports teams, dance academy, and 4H chapters are pulled along by still more tractors or large pickup trucks.
Elaborately dressed horseback riders - too few of these considering the number of horses in the area - are scattered between the floats. The horses's manes and tails are braided with red, white and blue ribbons. I remember my own days as a parade rider, and I know these people have been grooming their horses and polishing their saddles since yesterday.
Dairy queens from the surrounding counties sail past in convertibles, dressed in their lavish gowns like colorful, miniature schooners. I had never seen a dairy queen before moving to Wisconsin. If you can imagine a beauty pageant or prom queen featuring "real" girls who live on farms and raise cows, you'll have a general idea of what a dairy queen is. They are all lovely, and they wave to the crowd with all the practiced ease of the Queen of England. One small child is carried by her grandmother to a dairy queen's car to get a "high five" from one of the queens to the delight of the crowd.
The high school marching band appears midway in the parade, kitted out in full uniform. They're quite good, actually - they'd better be if any of them want to be considered for future membership in the University of Wisconsin marching band.
The town mayor rides along the parade route in a fire engine red golf cart, state and local politicians up for election distribute campaign literature, and karate kids from the town dojo show off their high kicks and twirling swords. The cast of the community theater rolls by on a float, as does a charming wagon from the Monroe Cheese Festival, all done up like a Swiss chalet, with Swiss theme music to boot tinkling from hidden speakers.
Mixed into all of this are cars and trucks from local businesses advertising anything and everything - from sandwiches to tree services to street cleaners to farm feed for dairy cattle.
No, it's not the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Rose Parade, but what it lacks in cash, flash, and polish it more than makes up for in charm and warmth. Candy is thrown into the crowd from most of the floats, neighbors chat with each other, and it feels like what it is - a real community. We cheer for the dairy queens and 4H queens, we cheer for the elderly woman driving a tractor with a young woman, possibly her great granddaughter, sitting beside her. We cheer for our fire trucks and veterans. We cheer because it's summer and it's sunny and green and the people on parade are our friends and children and the grandmother down the street.
Harvest and Bear and JuJuB and I take it all in. JuJuB sleeps through part of it, having seen eight parades by now, but Bear is all eyes and ears. He doesn't want to miss a moment.
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