4th of JOO-ly in Swan Valley Montana: Small Town Snapshot Sunday

As we have every Fourth since Matt and I met, we trooped out to the Swan Valley parade.

It's a fairly loose organization. I'm never really sure who's in charge. Usually when you ask, someone says, "Go ask for Ed/Bob/Val."

Ed/Bob/Val is a harried looking guy who, in his heart but not in actuality, is carrying a clipboard and a bullhorn.

But, really, come on, the ones who are actually organizing are the Ladies. They've done this for 60+ years. They were in this parade. They shoveled their kids through it. They coaxed their grand kids. It's simple. It's not to be messed with. Get in line. Parade.

Everyone with a vested interest in the parade gathers in front of Liquid Louie's Liquor Lounge. (A watering hole my normally passive husband refuses to let me set foot in. I figure there's an incriminating picture of him posted behind the bar. Or maybe something indelibly etched in the Ladies ... ? Some days I feel like Bluebeard's wife.)

There is supposed to be a safety briefing, though I've never heard it. This year I asked around and the best anyone can figure out is that the briefing should cover what paraders are supposed to do if there is an emergency call immediately before, during or immediately after the parade. Since Hwy 83 is the only road through the Swan Valley, that's where the parade parades. All the emergency vehicles are in the parade. So, in case of an emergency, we all need to get off the highway so the emergency vehicles can go. Check.

By 11 a.m. we are assembled in front of Liquid Louie's waiting to go. I've never actually heard anyone actually say, "Okay, start." Someone does, I'm sure.

Marching at the head of the parade are currently serving and retired vets in uniform. They just kind of seem to go. Everyone falls in behind.

The most junior ranking person sets the pace by custom. No small feat when the other regular marchers are a Navy captain, a Marine colonel cum county sheriff, an Army major and a really senior Army NCO (he's the one out of step). But it's been a while since these officers have paraded (especially the Navy boys), so the junior guy is in charge.

Color guard riders with the US and Montana flags follow. It used to be better-behaved boys from a reform/boot camp down the way. But now it's usually the guys that have "worked on the parade." I'm not sure what the work has been (see: "Get in line. Parade."), but I don't doubt they did it. And they look good on a horse.

Then the kids follow on their horses. There is no little competition in decorating these horses. Every year, one of them gets first place for their efforts. We none of us are sure why the kid who is awarded first gets the blue ribbon. As my niece says, "All the horses look like the Fourth threw up on them." She's won first for several years and she doesn't know why. She figures it has something to do with the number of glitter spray cans she goes through.

The rest of the parade steps out in an ad hoc fashion. There are donkey carts, mule carts and trucks pulling flatbed "floats" with Sunday school kids clinging to it. The Shriners show up in their clown cars. The Corvette club makes a showing. There are flatbed trailers "floats" for the historical societies and the conservation district. The freshly polished ambulance followed by the fire truck coast down the road, half hoping for an emergency and half not.

One year some bar had a float featuring an old tin bath with a shirtless, grubby looking fellow in it. A miner? A ranch hand? Straddling him was a negligee'd lady "bathing" him.

Um. Yes.

A pocket of silence followed that one down the parade route.

Have I mentioned the candy? There's a lot of it. People (okay — kids) in the vehicles pelt bystanders with candy from Costco sized bags. If you aren't beaned by a jolly rancher or a tootsie roll on the Fourth in Swan Valley you weren't really participating. The Killjoy in me wants to make a new rule for next year: you have to apply to throw candy from your "float." Only six permits will be given.

Fun-stifling, I know, but I'm concerned. I have visions of deer and other varmints coming out after dark and scraping up the trod-on, rolled-over peppermints and saltwater taffys from the road. These sugar-starved critters have the potential to either make some one's obituary a real laugh riot ("Ed was impaled by his loosely installed gunrack after leaving Liquid Louie's parking lot in his 98' Ford 4x4. Reaching an estimated speed of 85 mph, Ed hit a two point buck which failed to yield the right of way. The buck, who also died in the crash, was later found to have his front teeth glued to the asphalt by green apple Laffy Taffy.") or they will go on a 10 mile wide, sugar-fueled rampage resulting in ripped out window screens, savaged planter boxes and flat tires with double tooth marks.

(Now there's a sentence to be proud of.)

As the procession ends, the highway is again open to through-traffic.

This is my favorite part.

There's usually less than a mile back up. Most locals know the parade is blocking the highway. Most locals are involved in the parade, I guess. Anyway, some folks in the back up are angry. Some are impatient. Some are from out of country and have no idea what we are doing and why. But the best, and most common, are the people who act like they are the final feature of the parade. They wave and smile and wish us a Happy Fourth. What great attitudes.

I throw candy at them.