the squibix family blog

After the parade we headed over to the fair, where the first thing we did was park our bikes in the free bike parking coral and put on stickers letting the world know that we biked to Bedford Day. The tree we're accustomed to using as our home base during the fair was a little less peaceful than usual thanks to the kiddie train ride (new this year!) that stopped right by it, but we're creatures of habit so we didn't let that put us off. Plus it's convenient to the karate demonstration.

The boys now have two good friends who wear the red jackets of the Callahan's Karate leadership team, so it was extra fun watching them go at it. Although Zion says the adults' pretend fighting gets less convincing every year. Callahan's is maybe the biggest of Bedford's youth-oriented institutions, so there was a lot of karate energy at the fair. Zion and Elijah each had the opportunity to break a board.

All that activity was balanced out by tons of calories from sugar. Besides all the parade candy we could pick up more from many of the booths. And there were a couple Evangelical churches there, always good for some treats. The line for the free cotton candy was too long for any of the boys, right up until they ran out, but Zion went back to the free shaved ice booth three times. I ate my share of candy, and Harvey and I also split a thing of samosas from Bedford Embraces Diversity and some cookies from the soccer bake sale. Plus we all had lunches from home!

Our fair energy stared to fade at about the same time as everyone else's; we weren't the absolute last to retrieve our bikes from the corral this year. But even then the thrills weren't done, because apparently Bedford Day fireworks are now a thing we do regularly. Yay! So after dinner we headed back up the hill to meet up with lots of friends. Not that you can really have much of a conversation over fireworks, but it was still nice to share the evening with so many great people from our town. The show was good too!

Over the three-year gap since last time we went we stopped using the cargo bike, so I wondered briefly how we would get all the food and supplies for the day to Concord. As it happened it was no trouble at all with three strong kids who can carry their own bags. We shared the load out and, while mine was the heaviest with the tent, rug, and extra waters (and ice packs!) the boys did their share too. We rode in with friends, including a friend of Elijah's who did fantastic on the first "long ride" of his life.

We did all the fair things: listened to music and danced; bought cotton candy, popcorn, lemonade, and pie with ice cream; played on the playground; sprayed the firehose; and watched dogs catch frisbees. We also played Uno. And of course there were the field games!

We're a competitive bunch, so I'm happy to report we acquitted ourselves well. Zion won a sack race and a three-legged race (with me as partner), and Harvey and I came second in another three-legged heat. And Zion and his friend won three out of the five sponge toss rounds they entered (Harvey and I again came in second in a different round). And Elijah was happy with how well he did against the competition. He and his friend were amazing at the three-legged race, and would definitely have won a contest against people with similarly-sized legs who actually tied them together.

It wasn't a celebration of United States patriotism—I don't know how much we're feeling that these days. It was a celebration of summer, and local community, and friends, and it did that perfectly.

I don't know if there were more people out than the last time we celebrated as a town, but enthusiasm certainly felt higher as we arrived at the center of town for the parade Saturday morning. We met the same friends as last time—well, mostly, since in the intervening years all the kids have gotten older so some of them are now marching with karate or soccer. So we waved at them. There was a little less candy-throwing than past years but still plenty, lots of which—again—failed to reach the barricades along the side of the street. We didn't let our kids crawl under, but they still managed to get enough to kick off their sugar rush.

Not that they needed much parade candy, because the fair following the parade was full of sugary treats. Elijah was possessed by the idea of cotton candy so the first thing we did was wait in a long line to get some at $3 a shot (Zion too; Harvey chose a much shorter line for pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream). We felt a little sheepish later when we found another booth with free cotton candy, but that just meant the kids got another hit. We also enjoyed snow cones (free), popcorn ($2), and homemade chocolate chip blondies ($1: much the best deal). Plus we even found time to eat the lunches we brought!

Zion's two best friends were in the karate demonstration this year, so it was extra fun to watch. And there were balloons to play with, and fire trucks to tour, and the library book sale. Elijah got face paint. Then everything started closing down and we went home.

But unlike past years, that wasn't the end of the festivities! In Bedford we have Fourth of July fireworks only every five years, and we missed our shot in 2020. Never mind, leftover fireworks are much better in September, when the show can start at 7:30! We rejoined our friends—they brought glow sticks!—and the kids ran and played until the sky lit up with the most amazing fireworks display I've seen for at least two years.

The Party Band plays great danceable brass band music, so I really don't know how anyone would want to just sit and listen to it. But then, I don't know how folks in Bedford do a lot of the things they do, and overall it wasn't a crowd who wanted to move. So I felt kind of silly as I moved and grooved up in the front row. But not that silly: that's what you do at a brass band show! The band certainly wanted to get people up and dancing, so I imagined that they appreciated that at least one adult was actually into the music (lots of kids were dancing all over the place, of course). And that was confirmed at the end of the show, when the band applauded for me! Good times. We'll go to the other concerts this summer I expect, but there's no way they're going to be as good.

We started the day off with the parade, and we had a big gang together at our traditional viewing spot: four families that planned to be there, and one more who we just happened to meet there. New this year, the town set up some barricades along the street to, I assume, keep the kids from crowding the parade off the road in their desperate scramble for candy. We were happy to see them.

Not that they totally worked... besides the gaps in between them that let anybody with a lack of self-restraint come around in front, most of the people throwing candy from trucks didn't manage to get any of it actually over the barriers. Which felt kind of even more dangerous than not having them there at all? No worries for us, though; we stayed safely behind.

Then it was on to the fair. There was plenty more candy available at various booths, plus fruit at one and toothbrushes at a couple others to balance out the sweets. But we didn't last long; with the summery weather everybody was out there and it was a little overwhelming. Most of us quickly escaped to a shady spot for lunch. And from our shady spot we could watch the karate demos and dance performances—plus keep an eye on kids on the playground—so there didn't seem much reason to move for quite a while.

Eventually we decamped to the library for the book sale, and also because we just like being in the library. Several of our friends had by then left to watch the high school football game—rescheduled from Friday night due to EEE mosquito fears—so when they let me know that the second half was starting and admission was now free I forced the boys away from their bookish reverie for some real American sporting. I don't know how much of the game we actually absorbed over the 20 minutes we managed to stay in the stadium, but we certainly felt like we taking part in some real Bedford life.

Then leaving the stadium we watched some middle school boys rolling down a steep hill in truck tires: at least as thrilling as the football!

It was a fine day. Bedford Day continues to be one of my favorite days.

It wasn't all guns and aggression; there was lots of lovely fife and drum music too, and a handful of colonial women and children.

The weather was beautiful—clear and mild—so for the first time ever we actually stayed for the pole capping itself. We were there with friends, and all the kids endured the politicians' speeches without complaint (it helped that we gave them snacks). Our friend Andrew, who moved to town a couple years ago, said it was the most Bedford thing he'd ever experienced. It was especially fun cheering for our neighbor Samantha, who won an award as the most notable high school senior and had to sit up front looking respectable through all the speechifying. Then they put the hat on the pole.

The following Saturday was again warm and beautiful, perfect weather for cycling to Lexington to watch the big reenactment at Tower Park. I take pictures of it every year and they're all about the same, but it's such an experience I couldn't resist yet another round.

One difference this year is that, having biked, we were in position to watch the proceedings from the back side. That was great for the first part of the battle, but less optimal as the fighting moved east with a swamp between us and the action. I followed some other people into the woods to see what we could see, but the minutemen yelled at us so we had to go back. Unlike the more famous reenactment in Lexington Center, though, this one is big enough that there's always something to see.

The weather was looking iffy for Monday's parade, the highlight of the week's festivities. It was cancelled last year due to rain, so we were really hoping not to miss it again. Morning rain led us to cancel our own plans for a pre-parade picnic in Lexington, but things looked fine for the parade itself at 2:00 so at quarter to one we gathered up our three-family group of cyclists and headed out. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves until my mom called me ten minutes into the ride to let us know that, due to more rain in the forecast, the parade start had been moved up to 1:15. Yikes!

So we hurried. Zion was feeling week (he had skipped Saturday's ride because of sickness) so I carried him and his bike, but all the other kids (and adults) did great, and we made it the five miles up the hill in just 28 minutes—in plenty of time to find a good spot along the strangely empty parade route, and fortify ourselves after all our hard work with fried dough and Italian ice. We're always glad to be out for a parade.

Besides the reenactors and bands—and there were some fine bands this year—the parade highlights Lexington's increasingly diverse cultural makeup. We all liked getting up close and personal with this dragon.

We were talking smack about the Shriners as their first units rolled by, but then we had to take it all back when the mini-big rigs—pretty great themselves—were followed up by a trio of motorized tricycles—basically powered big wheels. Two of them could drift and the third could turn on two wheels. Very exciting.

After the parade was exciting too. The decision to start the parade early was an inspired one, because just as the last unit went by our spot the sky turned dark, and within five minutes the first drops were falling (the parade still had close to a mile to go past us, so sorry to those folks!). We were prepared, and got everything packed up and everyone into raincoats in record time.

Then the ride home featured weather that ranged from drizzle to torrential downpour. It was actually pretty great. I consider Patriots Day to have been celebrated.

If only the concert had started at 5:00 instead of 7:00, we would have loved the whole thing! It's hard being out of step with the wider scheduling of our culture...

The little one there is ours.. the big one belongs to our friends. They also brought along a hammock. Luxury! There was a bit of a breeze so sitting in the shade we were totally comfortable as we ate lunch and listened to music.

Of course, with so much going on around us we couldn't sit still forever. When we heard the announcement that the field games were starting we headed right over to compete in the sack race, three-legged race, and sponge toss. None of us won anything, but we had fun trying!

All that competition was hard work, so we were glad that the fire department was their with their hoses to cool us down. After we all got wet enough Lijah and Zion took their turn at the spraying.

There was lots more fun after that: listening to music, riding the train around the field, jumping in the bounce house, playing on the playground, and just relaxing in the shade. There were also balloons to collect and play with.

It took us five hours to start to feel done—just as well, because that's when things started to wrap up. So we rolled up our tents and hopped on bikes for the ride home. When you do things every year you notice how the kids are growing up: Zion able to ride the whole way himself and, unlike last year, Lijah even wore shorts for the occasion!

We paid special attention to the reenactors' outfits because we're just beginning our unit on Colonial times (I told the boys that morning that we would start in on Monday; Harvey asked, "why not today?!"). I took more photos of people's backs than I usually do.

It's interesting to see the different styles—the balance between historical accuracy, individualism, and comfort. I noticed comfortable walking shoes—black, but definitely 21st century—on the feet of some of the older reenactors. This morning we looked at the pictures and talked about why people were wore the things they did, and how they might have made different parts of the outfits. I do always think that studying clothes is a great way to get into any historical period. There may have also been an extended discussion about firearm technology.

We didn't talk much about the music we heard, though that would be a fun thing to explore too. Harvey was the videographer for the expedition, and captured nearly the whole parade; we'll take a look at that tomorrow and see what we can come up with in the way of a band.

And we're looking forward to lots more Patriots Day fun to come this weekend!