Independence Day

Of COURSE there was a parade! Southampton Village holds the only 4th of July parade on the East End, and it's very popular. The parade route, conveniently enough, goes directly past my home in the Village, so we sat on the front porch to enjoy it all. With Nantucket Reds in hand (champagne and cranberry juice) - hey, this is the Hamptons.

This parade has a long history - the people in the house across the street have had an annual party since the kids were small to gather and watch. Those kids are in their late 50s now, and have grandchildren of their own. It has all of the standard small-town parade features, including handmade floats, a few marching bands, antique tractors, and what seemed to be nearly every fire truck and ambulance on the the East End.

Appropriately enough for an Independence Day parade, there were multiple groups of veterans participating, including WWII and Vietnam Vets. In addition we had several groups of protesters, the local Democratic Party Committee, a memorial to a local soldier who was killed in Iraq, and a few anti-Bush activists. I found it interesting that the soldiers and the protestors received approximately the same response of subdued applause. It might not have been the same people clapping for each group, but I couldn't discern a measuarable difference in volume. All of the participants seemed to get an equally polite response. I wonder if that means that opinion was equally divided, or that everyone was equally indifferent? On the other hand, everyone seemed to agree that the fire departments deserved some serious love.

Nonetheless, the day itself was just a lot of fun. For the biggest NYC parades, you take the subway there and get to the route early, stand for hours packed in with lots of other spectators. The whole time, you watch the people around you for pickpockets, bemoan your aching feet, and wish you had gone to the bathroom before you left. Eventually you get watch a combination of fancy costumes and corporate floats blow past as quickly as possible.

This had more in common with some of the smaller neighborhood parades I happened upon from time to time in NYC, things like processions for a saint's day through Little Italy. The lawn chairs, the homemade decorations, the parade participants waving to their neighbors, the slightly less than perfect marching bands gave a great down-home neighborhood feeling to the whole thing. Not to mention at this version we could have cocktails on the front porch without attracting unwanted attention from the NYPD. All together, a great way to spend the day.