While America's capital is engaged in phenomenal spectacles and events to celebrate her 250th birthday, hundreds of millions of Americans are celebrating in small towns across this wide nation. We were privileged to be among them.
It's about a half-hour drive to the nearest town, and this modest place went all-out to celebrate Independence Day.
Every flag pole, every store front, every hand rail was adorned with flags and bunting.
As we walked the Main Street of the town, we saw benches set up for the convenience of those who would be watching the parade, due to start at 2 pm.
In other places, people had lined up picnic chairs in anticipation of the parade.
Patriotic signs where everywhere.
One store had put out a container of sidewalk chalk and invited kids to express themselves, which I thought was sweet.
We ducked into the local Veteran's Center where a three-piece band was belting out an outstanding version of "Johnny Be Good."
The city park was set up with booths selling everything from honey to crafts to books to soaps. It was a hot day, so the park was just a nice place for many people to hang around in the shade.
Lots of patriotic clothing.
By pure chance, we found a place to watch the parade in the shade with our pastor and his wife and toddler. People lined the street, waiting for the show to start.
Many kids carried bags, since a lot of the parade participants throw candy to the crowds.
Here's Mrs. Pastor and her toddler waiting for things to get started.
(By the way, Mrs. Pastor is expecting their second child, also a son, in October.)
Some kids waved flags.
The parade started, and somehow it just embodied the best of small-town America. Lots of cheering and applause for veterans, rodeo queens, classic cars, local businesses, emergency services (ambulances, fire, paramedics, etc.), tractors and other farm implements, and all the other components that help make a town function.
This being rural Idaho, there were lots of horses.
Many of the horses had glitter or sparkly stencils on their rumps.
The local Quilts of Valor exhibit.
And what's a parade without royalty?
A local gymnastics group showed up in full force. Every thirty seconds or so, at the sound of a whistle, they would all do a cartwheel. Honestly, by this point (we were near the end of the parade route), the girls looked pretty tired. That's a mile of cartwheels, after all.
Many times we didn't even know what certain vehicles represented. All we
knew was they added to the chaotic fun and everyone was having a good
time.
This is the local high school's extremely modest marching band. Despite their lack of numbers, they belted out tunes with great enthusiasm.
Nothing like a little death-metal garage band on a flatbed truck to showcase a variety of talent. Not my genre, but they were actually quite decent.
Let's not forget a salute to the people who feed this nation.
Or who harvest its timber for our building needs.
We saw a really cool series of flatbed trucks carrying various ordinary people. Are you ready for this? These were high school class reunions. This is the class of 2016 (10 yr reunion).
The class of 1996.
The class of 1986.
And – drum roll, please - the class of 1976, America's bicentennial. This float got a huge round of cheers as it passed.
What this day of festivities conspicuously lacked was some of the chaos taking place in larger urban areas, such as the teen takeovers plaguing various cities. Instead, it was just a lot of people gathering together to celebrate and have fun. Honestly, it was as fine a Fourth of July as we ever had.
Tonight Don and I plan to watch a livestream of the fireworks in Washington D.C., as well as some of the other celebrations such as the aircraft flyovers and the parade of tall sailing ships from all over the world.
Happy birthday, America!
