We have a parade in our neighborhood every July 4.
I don't know how it got started, or exactly how long it has been going on, though someone said 40 years and that sounds like a good number; it's possible to imagine someone who's been to every one of them. They could have gone to the inaugural parade in the bicentennial year of 1976 as a child, then with a child, then with a grandchild.
It's quite a modest thing, really. A couple hundred residents of the People's Republic of Hillcrest--I don't know who coined that phrase but my buddy Paul Bowen, who has served as the spiritual mayor of the neighborhood since my dog Bork died, says he did; contend with him if you want credit--start gathering on Midland Street just south of Lee Avenue around 9 a.m. (The very nice signs, new this year, accurately state that the start of the parade is "never on time.")
Participants bring their various-sized children and dogs--their baby joggers, scooters, bikes and Radio Flyer wagons, many adorned with novelty flags and tinsel and other snatches of red, white and blue--and follow a fire truck from Station 7 as it wends through the neighborhood south on Midland, then right and up the hill on Alpine Court, across Ridgeway and right again on Crystal Court, trailing strands of John Philip Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever." All along the route coffee-drinking people sit on porches or stand in yards, waving flags and occasionally firing up competing versions of Sousa.
(A couple of years ago someone brought some bang snaps to punctuate the procession, a breach of decorum that wasn't addressed beyond a few side-eyes and kids sharply pulled by the elbow out of the path of the harmless but annoying poppers. Yet the miscreats must have gotten the message, for this year's parade was silver fulminate-free.)
It ends up with most of us standing on the playground at Pulaski Heights Elementary School, with Brent Walker delivering a rousing reading of the Declaration of Independence to the cheers of the audience.
It's corny as Kansas in August.
What's probably best about our parade are the long moments before it begins when neighbors are milling in the street, meeting and re-meeting each other, comparing experiences. We greet friends then gradually steer our criminally adorable terriers to the curb where they can receive the tender attentions of small children and young mothers wondering whether it's time to get their charges a dog of their own.
(Maybe, we tell them, pointing out that not all our dogs have been quite so agreeable as Paris, Dublin and Audi seem. We advocate for rescued mutts over milled purebreds and point out that--as gentle as they are with little people--Paris and Dublin can be fierce when they feel their personal spaces have been invaded. They suffer from a common condition called "leash aggression" that occasionally causes them to lurch barkily toward large animals, skateboards and helmeted bicyclists in full shades-and-spandex mode. Dogs are as complicated and crazy as any other mammal to whom you're likely to make a long-term commitment, so proceed accordingly.)
This week the big news in our 'hood is the bearded guy who's taken to following UPS trucks and stealing packages off front porches. A couple of people have captured images of him which are circulating on the Internet. We have a pretty good description of his vehicle. Apparently the police have been notified and know who he is and where he lives, but they're waiting for him to strike a few more times so they will have a felony case against him.
He probably doesn't have any clue the whole neighborhood is on to him, that people are idly discussing putting out decoy packages filled with foul matter and watching for his SUV. I know it's a bleeding-heart thing to do, but I hope he quits before he gets into worse trouble. I hope nobody shoots him.
He wouldn't be expecting that, not in this neighborhood, which is typecast as one of the state's liberal bastions. But "liberal" is a relative term, for this is after all Arkansas. Lots of duck hunters live around here, and probably a few nightstands hold some high-dollar personal ordnance. Not to mention the golf clubs and tennis racquets that might be swung in high annoyance at a Zappos thief. It might be best if the cops hurry up and fetch him.
Maybe you have lived in places where residents pretty much keep to themselves and go about their business quietly, without impinging upon their neighbors' lives. Places where people might nod in the street or even smile at one another but never attempt to draw familiar strangers into conversations about things that matter. Places where people don't imagine their concerns about how to live could be interesting to anyone else. Places where people leave one another alone.
A lot of us grew up in places like that, in suburbs where every household could be self-sustaining. And those who didn't grow up in those places probably envy those who did, because the competing interests of the thrown-together can get wearying. There are lots of hard, crowded places where people wind up, and if you've been there, peace and quiet might seem like a tonic.
Other people will tell you that America is an exhausted idea. There is a meanness in the world; so many people who weren't brought up right, so much ugly feeling coursing through the air.
But our parade isn't meant ironically. It isn't some smartass little parody display designed to provide cover for Chardonnay parties and gossip sessions. It's an act of confirmation, a restatement of faith. It's our signal to each other that we yet believe in the possibility of greatness, and that we're willing to continue the hard and unremunerative work of being American.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
www.blooddirtangels.com
Editorial on 07/10/2016