Wednesday, July 4, 2007

4th of July Celebrations in Rural America 7 '07

The Fourth of July celebrations are different in rural America than in the urban areas of the country.  They are a lot less packaged and polished and a lot more personal.  For one thing both homes and businesses alike get into decorating with red white and blue on a par with Christmas in the big cities.  
Individuals can enter the Pawleys Island Parade
Then there are the parades.   Each little town has its own celebration, but rather than competing, the townships cooperate with one another to stagger their events so people can attend most of them, and still make it home in time to watch the nationally televised pictures of the firework shows in Boston, NY and Washington DC..  
We started the day with The Pawleys Island Parade at 10 am.  It begins on the South Causeway with the local fire trucks leading a loop drive around the entire Island.  Anyone can register to get into the parade but the Islands narrow streets and turn-arounds limit the float size.  The end result is a mixture of uninhibited exuberance and fun.  
Our next stop was Murrells Inlet for an equally lively boat parade.  The Inlet anchors the southern end of the Myrtle Beach tourist area and has a long board walk which is great for watching the parade.  For our part, we enjoyed the parade   from the out-of-door patio of one of the local restaurants.
In the early evening we hopped over to Georgetown for a free concert held on the lawn of one of the historic mansion/museums.  It was an interesting mixture of JP Souza marches and Chorale renditions of Fiddler on the roof.  This was followed by fireworks over the Winyah Bay in Georgetown

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