July 13, 2007

• North Shore 4th of July

  We live in a very small town (about 2000 people), so I thought that I knew how small towns celebrated the 4th of July. This year, we were up on the North Shore near the very small resort town of Tofte, and I learned that I did not know as much about it as I thought! We heard that there was a parade from the park to downtown Tofte in the afternoon, so we decided to go. Now, the park is less than half a mile from our cabins, and downtown Tofte is less than half a mile from there, so we knew that this was not going to be a very long parade. We talked about whether or not there would be many people there. Dan was inclined to think that there would not be because of the size of the town. I thought there might be a crowd because it is a resort area and I thought that the “summer people” would be looking for 4th of July festivities.

  We went early just in case we needed to stake out a spot. It turned out that there were quite a few people there, so that was a good idea. We could easily have walked, but we drove because it was easier with the kids. We parked close to downtown, getting one of the last parking places. There were food booths set up near where we parked. We had eaten and we brought drinks with us, so we we were not interested in those booths, but there were several others selling various arts and crafts. One booth had beautiful hand knit children’s sweaters, and Jess bought one as a baby gift for a friend. I bought chances on a lovely hand made quilt. Then we went back to the car to watch the parade.

  

  That’s Dan in the foreground. He was not part of the parade, but the kids on the bicycle and the 4 wheeler were. It seemed that if you had any type of vehicle and some balloons, you could be a parade unit. Notice how narrow that parade route is.

  The Conservation Corps carried a homemade banner.

  

  Some people trailered their boats and joined the parade.

  

  Here’s a whole lawnmower brigade.

  

  Most of the parade was made up of classic cars that came down from Ontario, Canada. I thought that that was very nice of them to come since the 4th of July is not really a Canadian holiday. Dan liked this car:

  

  I thought this one was neat. (Do people say “neat” anymore?)

  

  There were at least 2 dozen classic cars.

  The parade route was so narrow that you really could reach out and touch the parade units. It’s customary here to throw candy to kids watching parades. As each unit passes, the kids run out into the street to collect the candy. In this parade, the kids got candy, but the people in the parade just handed it to them as the went past. It was easy to converse with the parade participants, so we told some of the classic car drivers that we liked their cars.

  It was a nice little parade and a good example of a community coming together to celebrate.

  • 8:46 am
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