Skip to main content

The Parade



The miracle of the week, if not the whole summer, is that there will somehow be a parade for the Fourth of July. Not just any parade, but the 50th Longfellow Fourth of July Parade. This announcement from the Village of Harper’s Choice made me smile:

The Parade is on! Rain or shine...50th annual Longfellow Friends of the Traditional 4th Parade  

The 50th annual Longfellow Friends of the Traditional 4th Parade will take place on Saturday, July 4, rain or shine, at 10:00 am. Don't forget your face masks! 

Lineup begins at 9:15 in the parking lot of Longfellow Elementary School. It will travel from one end of Hesperus Drive to the other, and return to the school via Eliot's Oak Road. 

This year we will be saluting the 25 Founders of this wonderful Longfellow tradition! All are welcome to participate, or just come and watch. No advance registration!

The Longfellow Parade is steeped in good, old-fashioned Columbia history. (You can see some great photos of previous parades here.) The fact that it is going forward despite current challenges does not surprise me. From a 2017 Sun piece about the parade by Libby Solomon:

A firetruck from the Banneker fire station leads the parade, which loops around the two main Longfellow streets, beginning and ending at Longfellow Elementary School. Cub Scouts follow, then the parade's two awardees, the grand marshal and Good Neighbor. Members of the Harper's Choice village board — who one year carried a wooden board reading "Village Board," according to The Washington Post — follows close behind.


One of my favorite, albeit newer, traditions connected with the Longfellow parade is the appearance of volunteers from Food for Tomorrow. The initiative began in 2011 through the efforts of student interns in Councilwoman Mary K. Sigaty’s office. This article in Patch describes how Rodrigo Futema and Dylan Goldberg were moved to action when they learned of the community’s increasing need for services from the Howard County Food Bank.

The Food for Tomorrow volunteers are a familiar sight at local Fourth of July events. This year will be no different.



If you want to make a donation during the parade, they ask that this year you give loose change or small bills rather than food items, as it will cut down on the amount of sanitizing that will need to be done at the Howard County Food Bank. These folks think of everything.

If you want to volunteer to assist Food for Tomorrow in the parade, fill out this form to let them know.

Food for Tomorrow’s Dylan Goldberg, now a graduate of the University of Maryland, works in the Maryland General Assembly for Delegate Shane Pendergrass. He was ready to spring into action as soon as he heard that the Longfellow Parade was on. I’ve heard that Goldberg thinks of July Fourth as the best day of the year because of its significance in America’s history. The fact that he has combined that love with a way to make the lives of other people in out community a little bit better is the kind of activism that makes my heart glad.

Remember, if you go to the parade: masks, adequate physical distancing, and plenty of loose change and/or small bills if you have them. Let’s help people walk away from this parade with no other last effects than the joy of celebrating with neighbors.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more