Remembering the 4th

I remember sparklers when I was somewhere around 6 years of age. It was in California and fire danger in July was super extreme most years. So we lit our one sparkler (one per child) either over well watered lawn or on the cement driveway. And under direct adult supervision!

When I was 11 I had just moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The neighbors insisted we go as a group to the parade. They didn't want us to miss it. And what a parade. Big floats sponsored by the largest employers in town, and lots of drum and bugle corps, two high school marching bands, and fire trucks. Big red fire trucks with sirens screaming.

That was my first 4^th of July parade. That was 1954. It was to be followed in Pittsfield annually until we moved to upstate New York. We didn’t have parades there that we attended. It was another neighborhood thing with cook outs and sparklers nearby.

Later, after college years I was alone living in an apartment in the Chicago area. No personal celebrations I can remember until I was married and living in our first house in Wheaton, Ill. We lived one block from The Parade Route! That’s what our neighbors told us and wow! They were right! We heard the excitement build, then countless cars parked all along our street, then crowds walked down the middle of the street to get to the parade route. We followed. And we remembered the 4^th in grand style.

I also remember being a new property tax payer. The fire trucks going by belonged in some small part to me! I felt it. And the adulthood experience made me choke up. [I know; what a softie! But it was very real to me.]

Years later, after many Wheaton 4^th of July celebrations and parades, I moved to Warrenville, Ill. freshly divorced, and just 4 miles from Wheaton. The kids went back to the Wheaton neighborhood for the parade and friends; I stayed home and painted the interior of the town home!

A few years later I was involved with the local chamber of commerce and we had a float in the Warrenville 4^th of July parade. Only local tradition held the parade on the 3^rd of July, in the early evening when July temperatures were likely a little cooler than mid-day on the 4^th! Good planning. Although Warrenville’s parade was small and home grown, it was the personal scale and friendliness of the parade that made the experience the best ever! Suddenly I had another July 4^th tradition to be involved with. And be proud!

A community that celebrates together knows the cross section of the community pretty well. This is the kind of interchange that cements bonds among friends – and helps build new friendships as well.

Home grown and down to earth. Warrenville comes out to meet and greet and celebrate together. So many stories come alive. So many  tales of years past.

And so many years anticipating the future. New jobs, new babies, new marriages, new friends. New degrees, too, and then new careers zooming to greater futures.

The Warrenville 4^th of July: it includes the city staff, city council, Library, Park District, Fire District [celebrating 75 years of integral service and life with the community!], the Boy Scouts, marching bands, local businesses, neighborhood groups, churches, charities…all the components of the community. The newspaper is there although invisible! But the kids are there, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Generations of Warrenville families still sharing the special day.

On this day we recall the beginnings of our nation. The beginning of individual and community responsibility. How together we built a nation to be proud of in good times and bad. Together we have worked to bring fresh new opportunities for others to experience. Today we still work together to build a better future. Not just for me, or you; but for all of us. The we in community in Warrenville is alive and well.

May it ever be so!

July 3, 2014