Currently, we live in a small rural town in Illinois and today is a big deal for the residents and my family. It also marks the first Fourth of July that my wife was a part of the parade as a small business owner. She has been part of the parade in the past as a Girl Scout leader, but this was new territory and she needed help. Unfortunately for her, I was that help.
Hoping to drum up some new business, my wife made fans using paper, staples and popsicle sticks with some clever puns to hand out to the crowd. Perfect for a hot day. Now, I've been a watcher and a photographer of parades, but never an integral part of the parade and I had to step up, literally. I was going to pull the decorated wagon holding her fans while she scrambled through the crowd handing them out.
Before we hit the streets my wife left early with the wagon for roll call while I tried my best to keep our nine-year-old on target and out the door to view the parade with her friends. In the process of finding our kid a bucket to collect that oh so sweet candy, I dropped a cooler on my bad foot. With only moments until parade kick-off, I sucked it up, covered my kid in sunscreen and got her out the door, and I walked over to the high school.
When I arrived at the school I learned my wife was awarded first place for best business float and that the man holding a Betsy Ross flag would be following the wagon that I was pulling. I didn't think much about it, really, until someone yelled, "now that's a flag I can get behind. Goddamn right!" All of my focus on the task at hand and my foot pain, including some self induced pain from a late night spent with friends, was gone and now I was listening to the crowd react to the flag and trying to get a shot of said flag while I dragged the wagon just feet ahead of it. I suspect that there weren't many fans of Colin Kaepernick in the crowd. Why does everything have to keep getting weirder and more uncomfortable lately?
I'm all about distractions from the pain and I started looking for more examples of Independence Day going off the rails and I began feeling sick to my stomach... I've since moved onto pondering if I should stay home with our elderly dog who is seconds away from stroking out due to the neighbors' fireworks or leave him alone in the basement with our daughter's white noise machine while wearing his ThunderShirt as we go watch the local firework show. America, fuck yeah!
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