Fourthed Out

The first shots were obviously taken on my phone. It was an impulse decision to attend the 4th of July parade in Dennysville (pop. 329 in 2017) on the 3rd. Don’t ask why it was on Wednesday – I’ve learned “shirt-tail” parades are a thing.

A much shorter parade than even Campobello’s, it still featured loud fire engines, cute kids, and lots of Shriners. Cool!

The plan for the 4th was to make it to 3 (yes 3) different parades in 3 different towns. Mid-morning I’d see the one in Pembroke, then Eastport in the afternoon, and finally Lubec in the evening.

The first problem with that schedule is that there were going to be thousands of people in Eastport. I know I’ve been away from the big city too long because I left little Lubec the other day thinking it was really crowded. Seriously – I couldn’t even get one of the 3 parking spots in front of the hardware store.

The biggest problem though was the weather. I know it’s hotter in lots of places but, trust me, everybody agrees it’s too hot here. If you go just a couple of miles inland the temperature jumps by 10F – good thing Molly has air conditioning.

The decision was made to stick to Lubec. This meant attending the Lions Chicken Barbecue (which was great) and then going to the main parade in the early afternoon. There were lots of loud fire engines – remind me next year to take ear protection – and enough candy was tossed to make all the kids happy.

It wasn’t getting any cooler but I persisted. This parade had a lot of energy and some really pretty entries. Imagine those balloons above from the other side and you have a great representation of the American flag.

In some ways it was a typical small town parade – people cheered their relatives and friends, and floats would stop so kids on-board could talk to their grandmother.

Patriotic symbols abounded – and weren’t restricted to the parade entries. Spectators had fantastic red/white/blue outfits and assorted attachments. I think what I remember from this one is the sheer abundance of colour.

I mentioned shirt-tail parades earlier. This was a major entry in the “main” one.

There was another scheduled for later in the day. I started to refer to it as the “adult version”. I knew it wasn’t going to be a carbon copy of the first and I had been warned that alcoholic beverages might affect the nature of the second.

To give you just a small idea of the occasional departure from the first script, this is what happened to that happy little train in the second. Who knew Santa and all those ex-presidents had retired here?

This is a longer than usual post, I know. But it feels like it’s been a long week. 4 parades in 4 days is my limit. I’m partied out.

I’m going to hide from the heat for the next couple of days, try to calm the cats down (fireworks last night, lots of fireworks), and hope life returns to its usual calm, foggy ways. 🙂