Coralville, Iowa has become the home of a huge 4th of July parade each year. In fact, there's something going on around here beginning two weeks prior to the holiday. Cedar Rapids has their annual BBQ roundup, with dozens of things going on and darned good BBQ as well. Coralville starts in a couple of days before the 4th, one of the highlights being a free concert that draws around 10,000 folks. We've seen the groups Kansas, The Little River Band, Three Dog Night and best of all, Blood, Sweat and Tears. And, it's all free, unless you count chowing down at the food vendors a part of the concert!
This year's theme was all about the Old West. They invited as many of the cowboys who used to be in the old Westerns to be the parade marshals. I can't really tell you who they were, but I remember some of the faces from watching old movies, even if the faces were a lot older than they were in the movies! It was pretty neat, actually.
The concert stayed within the cowboy theme by bringing the Charlie Daniels Band to town. Now, Charlie is pretty much a straight up, shoot from the hip sort of guy about his politics, and believe me a lot of the Democrats in the crowd were miffed enough to leave when he voiced some pretty strong opinions. I thought it was pretty funny, myself, to watch them stalk off into the proverbial sunset.
Anyway, the concert was good - I've always gotten a kick out of Charlie, and I like his music. Of course, the last song that was played was the one I really wanted to hear - "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". He'd found an Iowa girl who plays a mean fiddle to join him on stage. It was a lot of fun to watch them and I'll bet the girl will take that memory with her for quite awhile!
Fourth of July morning I joined Lyn, Luke, and Lainie at Marsha and Kirk's house to watch the parade. Kirk and Marsha live right on the parade route, so our seats were quite good, and the candy supply was fresh for the kiddos. I got one hellova sunburn though...not bright enough to put on sunscreen, you know.
Anyway, no matter how I feel about the politics of the government, I still love the USA, and it gave me great pleasure to see, even in this ever-so-liberal city, that young and old had the respect to stand as the colors went by. I had honestly wondered if there would be booing and cat-calling. Nope. It makes me have a little more faith that we'll come out of this unrest okay.
I took very few pictures; the ones I did take are probably on the dorky side, but I'm gonna share 'em anyway. Enjoy!
This is a military band from Fairfield, Iowa. I'm not certain whether this is a reserve unit, but I suspect so, but these guys have really made a point to be as good as any active military band. They were a pleasure to watch and listen to!
Since the Gecko is so popular I took a pic for the heck of it. As the temperature was in the 90's by the time the parade was at the end of the route, I imagine the Gecko was pretty much wilted inside that costume.
What can I say? I love the horses. Of course, as any dog lover knows, a horse is nothing more than a great big dog!
These draft horses were pulling an old time glass hearse. It was really pretty - okay, so I'm weird - but my camera batteries were being offended at my trying to take a lot of pictures quickly and I didn't get a picture of the thing. But, I thought the fly blankets were cool looking.
And of course, where there are horses, there must be things left behind...;) Road apple, anyone? They've been reduced to .05 cents!!!
And, that was part of my 4th. No fireworks this year, except what I happened to see on TV!
1 comment:
I would have loved to have seen the glass case too Kate. But i'm weird like that too ;)
Post a Comment