Have a safe and Happy 4th of July

4^th of July is my all time favorite holiday…  I love the parades.. the cook outs, the weather, and the fireworks..

As I have gotten older, I still love it all but it has changed a bit.. The part I love about the parades is the marching bands.. but here, we rarely get one.

Never mind 8 or10 of them..  I was raised on the parade of Bristol, R.I.

Which is the longest running parade of the USA.  And bands they had.. So many of them.. (same with Newport, R.I. yearly Police parade).

I go to one of two parades.. If the King goes.. we go to Clark Fork, Idaho one.

It is small town parade… they shoot off guns at the start.. they have the ugliest truck contest.. And after the parade they have many family things to go to.

But they only have a western band on the back of a truck…

If the King decides to stay home or go fishing, then I go to Sandpoint. He hates the crowd.  I know a place to park, and walk a couple of blocks and watch the parade at the start.. And then when the last one heads down the street, I head back to the car and am out of town before half the

parade has gotten thru town.  They have a marching band… sometimes. I remember when the Sandpoint High School use to practice for the parade, out behind where I worked.  Now I don’t think they do any parades..  not

that I have seen in the past couple of years. But then again, I average ever other year in Sandpoint.  

Fireworks is only half of what they use to be in my kids’s days. We use to go and see the fireworks and they would have half dozen on the ground..

Like stagecoach and horses, or waterfalls and etc.. and the show ran about half an hour to 45 minutes.. now it is all over in 10 minutes ….. I suspect it has to do with cost more than anything.

Family fireworks are so expensive.. For $25 I could get enough to keep the kids happy for an hour. With ones that went up in the air about 12 feet.

or the spinners, that we use to nail to a long board and watch them spin against each other… firecracker we put in a barrel and stirred it… and of course sparklers..   now there are a lot of them, you can’t buy anymore,

And some are illegal… And they usually end up costing the family $100 or more.

And now with the forest drying out with our hot weather we have had, our minds go to safety, because of forest fire.  Arizona is on heavy on all our minds.. and the Sundance fire of years ago here.

So all of you, be careful, but have fun.. Enjoy the wonderful weather, the parades, cookouts, and even the fireworks… just be careful out there..

HAPPY 4^TH OF JULY to all