rain on my parade

Well, it didn't exactly rain on the Independence Day parade, but it did during the fireworks afterwards. We've had pouring rain on July 4th for 2 years in a row now, which is really odd since it really doesn't rain much downtown where they shoot off the fireworks. I guess it holds it all in until July 4th. We watched the fireworks from our lanai, so we didn't get wet or anything, so that was good. But, the rain shortened the life of the fireworks considerably. The parade, held earlier, was nice. Angel #1 was too cool to go, but the rest of the kids went. We bumped into our old neighbors and had a nice chat with them. We also enjoyed the live music downtown before the parade. A couple of funny parade things. The county workers had an entry, but it only consisted of a couple 13 year old girls holding a banner saying The Workers of Hawaii County, but there wasn't any workers. It was just these two little girls holding a banner. Hubby and I had a good time coming up with what happened to the workers. He thought maybe their contract only required them to walk a block in a parade, so after that, they just went home. I thought maybe they got hung up on the eternal road construction that never seems to get done. Or, maybe they weren't getting paid time and a half to march in a parade during a Federal holiday, so they didn't show up. One entry that did show up was the fire department. But, the trucks were actually were following at the very end of the parade behind some regular traffic. Turns out, they got called out to a fire and didn't get there in time to line up for the parade, so they just got tacked on in the end. The made it up to every though by stopping frequently and letting random kids get in the truck and hit the siren and also shooting everyone with the water gun mounted on the top of the truck.

I found it sad that many people did not stand up at the beginning of the parade when the American flag went by. It's like they totally forgot the reason they had the privilege of going to the Independence Day parade. Too many people have the same attitude of our vice-president who said that though it may sound corny, he's proud to be an American. I'm sorry Mr. VP, but being proud of your country is NOT corny and if you feel it is, maybe you should find a different job. People died for the freedoms we enjoy today, they should be remembered with respect as well as the people who are out there today, risking their lives so others can have the freedoms too many of us (me included) just take for granted.