Dear friends,
Harvard, Massachusetts has a “good, old-fashioned Fourth” of July—homemade floats, marching bands, lots of onlookers waving lots of flags, pie-eating contests, three-legged races—the works. Many’s the parade we marched in, made floats for, and cheered on. On 4th of July, we felt it was truly our town.
So last year, we trotted over to Randolph village, our new town center, with expectations. We were cruelly crushed. We witnessed a display of militarism and religiosity, coupled with a grotesque array of commercialism with floats from such as the local McDonald’s and car dealerships. Nothing homemade and only one horse. I was outraged and swore never to return.
This year we drove over the hills to Strafford, two valleys to the east, where we go to the Unitarian Universalist Church. Strafford is an exquisite village, with steep rolling hills decked in green fields, church steeples and gorgeous 18th-century houses arrayed along a common. They have a clapboarded, twenty-four-pane windowed Town House with a very tall bell tower built in 1799 on top of a high, grassy hill overlooking the common. Strafford celebrates on July 2nd.
With our guests from Washington State, we arrived in time to disport ourselves on that high lawn, on a day of extraordinary sunshine and warm blue skies. We were lucky enough to have run into a couple of people we know from church, making the event feel more home-town to us. Is that the parade? we asked them. No, that’s just the high-school band under that tree, playing the same marching tune over and over again. How about that? No, that’s the fire engine just parked over there. The common stayed quiet and nobody seemed to hurry.
At last the parade came, tiny in size but not lacking in spirit. Animals were well-represented by two gorgeous matched black horses pulling a wagon with a bunch of old people from the Senior Center, and an ox team washed and polished to a fare-thee-well. Two entries were outstanding. The Lawn Chair Drill Team approached in circular formation, nine middle-aged women in wigs and grins, holding their aluminum lawn chairs aloft and cracking them smartly against each other’s to make a good noise. At a whistle, they stopped, opened their chairs and threw themselves into them in attitudes of exaggerated relaxation and abandon. They got up and at another whistle looked alert and suddenly threw their chairs with a cry of “Ho!” to their neighbor in the circle, and kept that up til it seemed right to move on. For this they received wild applause, including ours. They were having a great time.
The other delight was the kazoo team. They had a leader in majorette boots and she had a whistle. They marched toward us, maybe a dozen of them, male and female in motley plaid skirts—white and green, yellow and red, very different plaids, and t-shirts and purple triangular hats. They didn’t look Scottish in the least. At a stern whistle from their leader they stopped marching, turned 90 degrees to face us, whipped kazoos up to lips and solemnly tooted an unknowable tune on their kazoos, straight-faced. At another whistle, they turned and marched off to serenade another part of the common. We were practically rolling on the grass laughing. How they could keep straight faces and toot was beyond me. A final eccentricity was that the whole parade went around the common one more time, I guess to make up for its brevity. We did enjoy it.
Games followed and I closely watched the frog-jumping race. Some of the kids brought in teensy frogs, with names like Very Small Paul and Tiny Tim. These kids did not have the competitive spirit, since their frogs could not hope to out-hop the big ones. No-one cared, which I found so refreshing. Highlight of the games was the tug-of-war between Strafford and South Strafford. I could see that South Strafford, where our church is, was outnumbered. At the start of the tug, I overcame my outsider feelings and plunged down the hill to lend my strength to the southern village. “One-two-three—PULL!” cried my team again and again, and we actually were pulling down our foes. So we got cocky and unknowingly quit before the time was up, and Strafford pulled us all right down. It was great fun, even if I was totally anonymous. Turns out Mark and one of our guests ran down to join us, but were too late.
A variety show in the Town House took place that night with really good talent in singing classical and traditional music and guitar work. Fireworks ended the evening, with children in pajamas and all. You would think that would have been enough.
But on the 4th itself, another gorgeous day, we still felt celebratory. We’d heard that Warren had a famous parade though they are a town as small as Strafford, so off we drove to Warren, over the Northfield mountains to the west. Oo la la. I have to give you some highlights: Disorganization, once again, with no stress. Eventually, a pickup truck loaded with a musician playing excellent jazz piano and a teenage backup band upped the tempo on the street and set us up for roistering. We saw a pyramid proceeding down the street (picture a tiny town surrounded by mountains, big gushing stream going right through it) and a gigantic King Tut head following it. “King Tut for President 2012” read a banner. A giant Alice in Wonderland tea party table followed, peopled with enormous characters from Where the Wild Things Are. An outraged housekeeper for the local ski area stalked by herself holding a trash bin and a dust mop and a sign saying “Down with Dominque/ Arnold/ and all the rest of you—I am a victim too.” She was literally taking it to the streets. Then came a group of lean, strong men in short-shorts, leather chaps of the type loggers use and lots of earrings holding signs that read, “Gay Loggers for Jesus.” They were real loggers, and very gay. We couldn’t figure out if the Jesus part was real, too. In the distance I spotted a giant cigarette puffing real smoke. “Loco Smokehouse” read the sign, and I expected bacon and ham. But no, up came an old Cadillac convertible with a bunch of cheerful old and middle-aged people in it, decked with a sign that said, “Vermont’s First Mariuana Dispensary!” Flanking them was a small troop of really old women, all bearing signs: “Grannies for Ganja!” One young man accompanying them held a sign saying, “This is Vermont. I do what I want.” The whole joyful, blatant display made me gasp and wonder where the cops were. When it was all over, the crowd moved to the area in front of their general store, which has a balcony overlooking the street and the stream. Hot people took turns in the rushing cool water and picnickers ate among the flowers on the banks. Arrayed on the balcony a jazz-rock fusion band with about a dozen competent members started cranking out irresistible dance music and we danced in the street for hours.
What’s not to love?
Love, Josie
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