Parade Hex

Spring was cold again this year. Not quite as wet as last year, but each day we got out of bed and poked our noses out to see if it was warmer yet. Only one day in all of June was almost 90 degrees and then the next morning it was back down in the 40's at first light. What happens with years like this is it makes for a short summer. If we can include the last half of June and the first half of September it's a good year. Then we can stretch our slim paradise of Summer to three months. To add to the lateness of Spring's arrival, the children were released late from school as well. A mere week before the 4th of July. In that last week town swings into extra high gear.

American flags bloom up and down Hope and High with the neighbors in an unspoken competition of who's flag is the oldest or the biggest. Someone on High St is always winner of the "biggest" division with the one that hangs across the sidewalk from the corner of the house to the top of the utility pole and reaches nearly to the ground. I noticed this year a disgruntled dog walker tied a knot in it.



The Carnival pulled onto the common and all the townies go the first night because it's "Dollar Night". Let the tourists go the rest of the week and pay $4.00 bucks a pop. If you live on the parade route forget about a full nights sleep for a few days. You're lucky if you make it to 3 a.m. because the street sweeper is out making sure the freshly painted red white and blue lines stay clean. Then there's the partying that goes on all night the night before and then after the day of festivities there's the clean up. The town does a very good job of clean up.

Also, it seems, a blind eye is turned to public drinking. If your cocktail of choice fits in a coffee mug we don't seem to notice that you get louder and wobblier as the day goes on.

In certain spots along the two and a half mile parade route campers pull in and set up shanty town for twenty four hours. During this period the drinking is non-stop. If you have the bad fortune to abut one of these areas, your patience is stretched to the limit.

If you are not from here, let me try to have you understand the importance of the parade. For two and a fifth consecutive centuries-with a very few exceptions for war and pestilence that we forgive- people here have marched down the street with musical instruments and guns on the fourth of July. Balls and beauty contests, picnics and fireworks and band concerts of every ilk lead up to the parade every year. Planning is a year round production and to be chosen Grand Marshall is akin to being elected President. This is no small small town parade.



One year the patience of town resident snapped and here is where the tale begins.



One bunch of camper revelers comes to the same spot every year. It's the parking lot of a posh waterfront restaurant who's owner has the good sense not to open on parade day. Directly across the street the land rises in a slight bank. In the middle of a row of old houses sits a Cape style cottage set back a little and three quarters hidden in an overgrowth of hedgerow and wild antique plants.
Every year for the last twenty; Clara, who lived in the cottage, had been driven crazy by this same group. Every year her 4th of July was ruined by these slobs. This year she was ready for them.
Clara is a native and her foremothers have been here for all the generations since white people set foot on Mt. Hope. She had watched the town be changed time and again by new comers moving in with their ideas of how the town could be "Better".