When most people think of the 4th of July, the first thing that pops into mind are fireworks. Not me.
For the past five years, since we moved to Greene County, our observance of our Nation’s independence has revolved around a community celebration much earlier in the day, the Stanardsville Independence Day Parade and Town Celebration.
It is a traditional small town celebration with a parade that includes almost every business and community organization followed by an invocation from one of the local clergy, a reading of the Declaration of Independence, the ringing of the courthouse bell and the singing of patriotic songs by our own Greene County Singers.
For several weeks prior to the holiday, my Habitat for Humanity buddies and I are busy preparing our float while Dave gets together weekly with the Greene County Singers, to get their pipes ready to perform.
Generally it’s a warm affair, both in spirit and temperature and the gathered stand beneath the hot July sun connecting with our forefathers. Not this year.
This year, we were given a break from the sun and heat. For the couple of hours or so while we were decorating our float which included a playhouse the local vo-tech students built for us to raffle off as a fundraiser, the overcast sky was welcomed. My buddy Chuck checked the weather report on his phone and saw that rain was predicted for us at 11:00. The parade was scheduled to begin at 10:00 and we were entry #60 but we remained hopeful the “weather guessers” would be wrong.
But, wouldn’t you know it, just as we the line ahead of us began to move from the high school parking lot to the parade route, the rain began. Luckily I brought hard hats for my buddy Suzanne and I to keep our heads dry and disposable rain ponchos to cover our clothes as we walked alongside our float tossing candy from painter’s buckets to the children along the way.
Despite my best efforts to keep us dry, it was one wet day. In my family, we would call it “camping weather” because for years it seemed like whenever we went camping in the summer, we would spend hours under a canopy watching the rain fall around us.
And so it was for us on Monday. Following the parade Suzanne and I sat under a canopy in hope that someone would come and buy our raffle tickets. The two rows of facing canopies looked more like a refugee camp than a holiday celebration. Those of us who’d brought rain gear were covered and semi dry while those who hadn’t were soaked to the skin. Still there was a camaraderie amongst us.
As the morning turned to afternoon and the crowd dwindled to less of a trickle than the water cascading off the canopy roof, I could see my neighbors across the way chatting and even dancing to the music from the band hold up and playing on the courthouse steps. Then, one by one, the exodus began. Weary from the wet, the canopies began to come down and trucks and trunks were hastily packed. Even though the event was scheduled to run another couple of hours, it was time to call it a day.
By the time we unloaded the car and set things in the garage to air dry, I was cold to the bone and exhausted. I dragged myself upstairs, changed from my wet clothes into jeans and a t-shirt and spent the next several hours on the couch.
When it was finally dark outside I could hear the fireworks going off down the street and that was good enough for me, more of a footnote than a highlight. I didn’t even get up to see them. I just hoped that they would end before I went to bed because my celebration was over and I was ready to sleep.