Reunion X--Fourth of July

 

Camille's guidebook ranked the Pittsfield Fourth of July as one of the top small town Fourth of July celebrations in the nation.  We sent contingents to both the early morning race and the parade in Pittsfield.  Dave, Camille, Emilie, Jono, Grant, Kirsten, and Bryce all ran the 5K race, and everyone finished.  Grant and Kirsten won awards for placing among the fastest runners in their age groups.  Bryce would have been first in his age group, except he was wearing Lisa's "bib" and was judged against 40 year-old women!

 

I spent an hour at the parade, fascinated by the people and things that drove, walked and crept by.  The vets are always favorites of mine.  They remind me of Grandpa Spendlove, upbeat and debonaire in their military uniforms, no doubt full of stories of Guadalcanal or the Battle of the Bulge (or maybe Saigon or the Tet Offensive).

 

 

 

I love the marching bands and pep clubs, and the motorcycles and fire trucks.

 

 

 

 

I like funky flag costumes, whether on or off Uncle Sam.

 

I like the offbeat, such as marching bells and an ad for an "exciting bank."

 

 

And I like watching the bystanders, whether individually or in genial hordes. 

 

 

 

 

As I walked back to the car, I admired the houses decked out for the Fourth of July.

 

During the afternoon, Dave, Michael and I drove to Bennington, Vermont, one of the towns where Dave served on his mission.  We visited the huge monument which Dave convinced his missionary companion was a memorial built to a beloved town baby, which town residents climbed up and down once a year.  Actually the memorial commemorated the Battle of Bennington, won for the colonists by the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution.  I studied the Green Mountain Boys in elementary school and was delighted to meet up with them again.

 

 

 

 

 

We took the elevator to the top of the monument, to look out, through granite walls, on the Green Mountain Boys' "greenness" as far as we could see.  Back on the ground we enjoyed the remains of this morning's Fourth of July celebration, including a festively decorated Mountain Moose.

 

 

We love New England churches, and there was a distinctive one in Bennington.  Not only was it beautiful inside, and picturesque outside, with craggy tombstones from the 1700s, but it was also the resting place of Robert Frost.

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back to our condo, we stopped for ice cream.  I had a maple walnut sundae--right dish, right place.

 

The Ebert and Flindt kids spent the afternoon swimming and playing board games.  An exciting (?) Monopoly game was raging as we arrived, and Alyssa was nursing a sunburn.  Kyle worked on his patent applications in the other room.



 

 

After dinner, we held the auction, the high point of all our Spendlove family reunions. We began with Dave's mom telling us a bit more about her grandfather, George Brimhall, president of BYU, and his secrets for success.  She passed out a list of George Brimhall's "Wisdom," including such one-liners as "Leadership never strolls; it strides" and "Truly repentant black sheep become white sheep."

 Dave was, as always, the auctioneer, wearing his horned hat and tie-dyed t-shirt.  Michael was his assistant.  Mike's job was to describe the items and solicit bids, waving a potato masher for emphasis.  Dave and Mike are both witty guys, and they provided almost as much comic relief as the bidders.

 

 

 

The bidding was fast and furious.  Sophia and Darrell bid up the price for makeup remover.  Steve sought the Toblerone bar with the zeal of a Crusader.  Josh and Jodi Kennedy's young son bid for the paperback novel Jodi had just read and discarded.  Annelise and Spencer won the real treasures--$15 iTunes cards.

 

 

 

 

After the auction was over, the children posed with their trophies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drove into Pittsfield for the fireworks.  The city fathers were so long in starting the show that most of our group left, but Sophia, Spencer, Grant, Michael, and I stayed until the brilliant, 20-minute show began.