The Fourth

Muncie doesn't have a July 4th parade any more, apparently because they haven't had enough float entries. But some of the little towns nearby do, so M, Daughter #2 and I headed out 20 minutes west to Chesterfield. We saw many fire trucks from various communities, loads of churches and one very sweaty high school band, complete with their three drum majors and a bagpipe corp! They seem to take high school band very seriously here, which is great for me. I grew up watching my siblings' marching band competitions, so I know how to judge the roll, the lines, the diagonals. I love them...I hope there's a competition in Muncie sometime this year!

After recovering from the outing and the hemming and hawing all day, due to high temperatures, dry grass and general introvertedness, we decided in the end to go to our city's fireworks display! We haven't been since 2009, when we sat on a hill in the Chicago suburbs.

(here we are on the bus)

So off we went in the car to park at a local high school. City busses shuttled us from there to Minnetrista, the local historical society/community & nature center, where America's Hometown Band was playing the 4th favorites.

There was an interesting demographic division I hadn't expected - on the north side of the river, where Minnetrista's nicely-watered grass had the Band playing, the families were thinner, more yuppie-looking and groomed differently than those of us on the south, in the prickly hay grass. Maybe more related to the University? Our area on the high school lawn showed more color, more tattoos, more weight...but the happy kids were the same on both sides. Everyone was having fun.

We sat, sweated, flicked ants, watched the locals, chatted a little bit, threw a baseball, sweated, read a few books until it got too dark, ate snow cones...and then, the fireworks! They were well worth the heat and sweat and shuttling and ants. The lawns held the largest congregation of Muncie-ites we've seen so far, so we were happy to see that people really do live here.