The Bloomington Fourth of July Parade, with Particular Attention to Candy-Throwing Technique and the Toleration of Opposing Views
I had an exhausting but satisfying Fourth of July. From 9:30 to 11:30, I was walking downtown, as part of the Monroe Republican Party group in the Fourth of July parade. From 2 to 5 I went firework-shopping in our new hail-damaged Subaru outback with my daughter two towns over. The photo is of a very little girl who helped her dad by moving fireworks from the counter to the box (except for the pop-its!); she did the work quite capably. From 6 to 11 I was preparing our driveway fireworks party, inviting neighbors, mixing people, managing the three 10-year boys who set off the fireworks, and collapsing in a lawnchair drinking bourbon, Old Glarus ale, and makgeolli while the ladies talked politics. (Fashion tip: wouldn’t be surprised if makgolli became the next mezcal.) I’d never walked in that parade before. Usually we walk in the neighborhood Hyde Park parade, notable for having 95% of the people in the parade with 5% being spectators and with a garden party at the end in the house or the originating genius. So I will reflect here on the parade, lazily, in list fashion, since today I’ve spent 12 hours so far sleeping and have little energy left.
(1) The Style of Parade. I don’t have a picture of us Republicans, but we looked similar to the first two rows of Democrats in this picture except we lack the ten or twenty officeholders and party hacks in the rows behind them.
We had Dave Hall, one of the town’s two state representatives, but he’s worth all the Democrats combined. All the parade photos are from Dave Askins of The BsquareBulletin, by the way, and he has lots more.
I met Paul White, a party stalwart with an impressive moustache.
(2) Candy-Throwing Technique. Two of us carried the banner, and five of us walked with bags of candy, throwing it to the crowd. That was lots of fun. What I decided was best was to carry my coffee in my left hand with the candy bag over my left shoulder. I would keep three pieces of candy in my right hand for immediate use, two tucked in and one between thumb and forefinger for throwing. Rather than throwing several pieces at once broadcast, I would aim for a particular child. That is more challenging for me and more fun for them, because it’s personal.
Some children had brought bags and held them open, so there the challenge for both of was to get the candy in the bag. If it was a likely boy, I’d throw up high, mortar fashion, so he had a good chance to catch it. I was warned not to use a forehand throw with a flat trajectory like an anti-tank gun, let I create a future one-eyed Democrat. A flat trajectory is okay on occasion, though, thrown low so as to hit the ground in front of the child or slide into their feet. This was particularly useful for three-year-olds, who hadn’t absorbed the full candy-catching concept and often were surprised to find candy had somewhat materialized in front of them.
I tried to be fair and to throw on specific request, especially if accompanied by “Please”, but sometimes I had to hurry past potential recipients to keep up with the Republican banner. I enjoyed throwing to the gentler kids behind the pushy ones, and I often told kids “First go back behind the line”, an order that they took in good part. After all, I had all the bargaining power— I was the one with the candy bag. I did not insist on “Please” first, as I do on Halloween—- parades are too fast-paced.
I am not good at throwing, but if I had been, I would have done a little more throwing to the middle and back ranks of spectators or into the laps of tired children sprawled in lawnchairs. It was extremely hot and humid, but the unpleasantness soon wore off. I had learned from a summer in Tokyo going to work halfway across town on the subway that an undershirt is useful in very hot weather (analogous to how if your car overheats in the desert you should turn off the air conditionig), but my outer shirt was soaked nonetheless. For future reference: use just one shape and weight of candy. It is hard to adapt under pressure to different kinds of ammunition, and flat candy, in particular, doesn’t go as far on the same throw and if it falls short you have to scoop it up and rethrow lest you tempt some child to run into the street and get run over by a trombonist or a pickup truck full of beautiful maidens.
(3) Tolerance and Trump. I wore my MAGA hat. For you who read this fifty years from now, “MAGA” refers to “Make America Great Again”, an uncontroversial slogan except that it was used by Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Nobody seemed to mind. Before the parade started, I wanted some coffee, and Bub’s Cafe was closed so I had to walk down the street to Bloomington Bagel, which says “Woke” on the sign outside and has little rainbow flags. I wondered if they would refuse to serve me, since there are hundreds of people on Twitter saying they would refuse to serve Christians and Trump supporters after the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative decision a few days ago, a decision for which I was an amicus curiae (I didn’t write the brief; I just commented and signed onto Sean Gates’s “Brief for Law and Economics Scholars as Amici Curiae"). The decision wan’t about either of those two things actually: the Court just said that the government can’t shut down a business if it won’t engage in “expressive speech” on behalf of a customers because they disagree with it. For example, Colorado can’t close down a conservative consultant just because he won’t do ad campaigns for transsexuals. It is true that most businesses can discriminate on the basis of political views of customers, but that was true already before 303 Creative, which is about the product sold, not the identity of the customer. That’s why it is currently legal for Twitter and You-Tube to discriminate against Republicans, or conservatives, or Bernie Sanders supporters, something the in-progress Texas versus Tech Lords case is all about (more formally, NetChoice v. Paxton). That case could be one of the most important of the century, and I have Substacked on the 11th Circuit opinion and the stay application. Since leftwingers don’t understand Supreme Court opinions, though, I wondered if I’d be refused service and be writing about that as I will be about being disinvited a few days ago from Justin Lanier’s class on how to use 21st century math research in teaching K-12 (always turn lemons into lemonade). But wasn’t! Cheery news for Independence Day; the young lady behind the counter was perfectly cheerful and willing to converse with me.
Also cheering, to me at least, was the reaction of my fellow Republicans. In my random sample of three of the ten or so, all four of us were generally supportive of Trump but thought he was ineffectual except at foreign policy and not very conservative, and hoped that someone like DeSantis would be the next Republican nominee. It reminded me of something I saw recently on a chat group:
I’m at the beach. Just south of where we are is a couple miles of beach that is undeveloped: “government land”. You can drive your truck onto the beach, and its free. People come allegedly to fish and swim but mostly to drink beer.
In June of 2020 there was not much else to do, so the beach was packed – several thousand people per mile. And you couldn’t walk 10 feet without passing a Trump banner. And it wasn’t a whole lot different in 2021 or 2022.
Being the 4th of July week, it’s packed again this week – but not a Trump banner in sight. Meaningful?
(4) Remember to bring flags. I forgot to bring a flag to wave. I meant to bring a bunch and should have, because none of the other Republicans did either, except maybe those in the truck.
It is cheering that American leftwingers, both liberals and socialists, seem to be diminishing in their distaste for the flag and patriotism. Nevertheless, I was disappointed to see three of my favorite businesses, a used bookstore, a brewpub, and an ice cream shop, promoting an anti-4th Party. I guess they support tyranny, and certainly the right of Parliament to suppress civil liberties, though I’m not sure what they think of King George.
(5) Music and potted plants. The group in front of us had a marching jazz bandwith a trumpet, two bass drums, two kettle drummers, an electric guitar, and a violin that was fun and effective. They also had a pickup filled with potted plants, luscious looking and good for any group.
One group had home-made drums that when beaten would push out smoke rings. That’s a very good idea. Sound is a good thing to have, and drums or recordings are easiest— and can be combined. I can’t find on the web how to make those drums, but I think a plastic garbage can or pipe section with a 10-minute military smoke flare inside (sold at fireworks stands) and something on one end to vibrate for the drum sound would work. What would be the vibration membrane? Plastic maybe. Or metal sheeting.
(6) Churches. My church should walk in the parade. It’s fun, good advertising, and community engagement. We could have the church band playing patriotic songs on a flatbed. Actually, the jazz band in front of the Republicans played “When the Saints Come Marching In,” so we’d fit right in.
(7) Speeches. At our fireworks party, I had the men— Messers Rasmusen, Han, Chen, Connell, Morrison, and Tyrzcinka— read sections of the Declaration of Independence. That would be good with a megaphone from a parade group too. The crowd would find it interesting. Next year, I have to remember to also read the Tweet about the awful fates of half the signers. Also very appropriate: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural or part of Washington’s Farewell Address (we skipped most of the Grievances in the Declaration) or Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”.
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