Today is the 4th of Juy and I am in Ojai, California, a little town of about 8,000 people. Regardless of their small size, Ojai has parade every year which I attend almost regularly. I missed last year so I forced myself to get out there today becuase, bottom line, I enjoy it so much. It isn’t a great parade in my opinion. I personally love colorful marching bands with flashy uniforms and huge drums that bang loudly and cymbals that almost smash your eardrums. There was none like that this morning.
I guess this town is too small or all that hoopla, but I’ll tell you why this parade was so great. It’s the people in it that make it so special. All of them are out there making a statement about how much this country means to them, especially the newcomers to the good ol’ USA, myself included.
After the floats of local clubs and business with kids on haystacks waving flags, a number of cars with the living veterans of all the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries passed to the cheers of onlookers. My favorite were the old guys who could still tell us about World War II. But what impressed me the most was a rag tag group of people from India with a sad-looking large, home made float, garrish in decoration playing their country’s music, dressed in Buddhist or Hindu garb. Looking like they were driving down a street in Delhi, they were waving the stars and stripes with enthusiasm, wishing all the onlookers a “Happy 4th of July.”
A group of Western cowboys, making their horses dance like the Lippizaners in Vienna, followed. And then there were the Aztecas, dressed in bright and shiny costumes as might be seen in a movie set in Mexico some hundreds of years ago, danced by proudly. Oh, yes, they also were waving flags and wishing us a Happy 4th!!”
Of course, there were shiny old cars that belonged to a Model A Ford club and another that were members of a Corvette Club that I loved to see. But it was the patriotism that was expressed in that parade by the newcomers to our land that hit the mark with me. You see, I am one of those newcomers. I am one of those flag-waving Americans who loves this country as much as, if not more so, than anyone else in it.
