Marching bands are the best part of a 4th of July parade

Everything else is a distant second

My younger daughter enters high school next school year. (Which is still far away in my mind, calendar be damned! Also, damn the retailers who will decide that summer ends today and shift into the-season-not-to-be-named, replete with deals on crayons, folders, etc.) Indiana recently implemented new diploma standards for the Class of 2029. Typical for a conservative state in a country whose administration hates education, the new Indiana minimum diploma requirements won’t even meet the admission standards for Purdue University, one of the state’s public universities.

But, much to my daughter’s excitement, the standards do permit a loophole which students can use to avoid taking physical education. Participating for one season in a high school sport or marching band can fulfill the PE requirement. My daughter likes music, is already in orchestra, and has no desire to take a PE class, so this is perfect for her.

Marching band has 58 hours of practice over the summer, and then another four hours per week for the first eight weeks of the school year. That’s exactly equal to the PE requirement of one hour per day for a semester.

But the community doesn’t gather to watch a bunch of kids in PE class the way they do for marching band.

In a country where sizable chunks of the population are still struggling for rights, I have complicated feelings about Independence Day. Every year I celebrate along with everyone else, while also feeling uneasy about the tragedies of America: sexism, racism, homophobia, jingoism, violence, militarism, and the innate inequity and greed upon which the country is built and continues to exist.

Nothing encapsulates my many opinions about the Fourth of July better than parades. One of the things that I enjoy about parades is that it’s one of those rare times where we can still feel like a community. Trick-or-treating, shoveling snow after a storm, and fireworks shows are among the only events of the year where most people aren’t closed off to “strangers.” Maybe concerts, too.

But there are many parts of the parade that I loathe. And it doesn’t take long to remember that as much as I value the idea of community, much of what makes up that community isn’t great. And as much as I believe that most people are capable of respecting each other on a very basic human level, it’s clear that things can quickly fall apart when issues of substance are introduced.

I sat through one parade last night and one this morning. I watched float after float, noisemaker-after-noisemaker, and I began to wonder whether parades had lost their luster for me. I mean, really, how many firetrucks and police cars do we need in a parade? What’s the use of parading the local police department’s tank-like SWAT vehicle? Come to think of it, why does any local police department have tank-like vehicles? How many vacation bible school flyers are too many? Shouldn’t there be a one-plumber-float-per-parade limit?

Among the elections to be held next year (hopefully, unless the Fascist president and his cronies decide to do away with elections) will be for our county sheriff. Five candidates for county sheriff attended the parade last evening. Five! We have other local offices in which candidates run unopposed, yet we have sheriff candidates crawling out of the woodwork. I’m going to write-in Barney Fife’s name on my ballot when the time comes.

The parades weren’t without bright spots though. We watched a girl who looked like she was about ten years old do four back handsprings without stopping! This morning’s parade had six or seven members of the local hearse appreciation club, one of which had “The Doom Buggy” painted on the side.

But the highlight of both parades was the marching band. And I’m not just saying that because my daughter played the hell out of a drum almost as big as she is. I’ve always loved listening to marching bands, and seeing these kids play their instruments in the heat, maintaining a constant pace, sweat dripping, and not missing a note made sitting through the rest of the parade worth it. In both parades I walked toward the back of the parade to meet the band and then walked alongside them for a few blocks. People of all ages paid attention and cheered after each song. It’s impossible to watch a marching band and not enjoy it.

Come to think of it, both parades were a good representation of life in present-day America. They led with force and noise and bluster, sprinkled in some politicians looking for votes, businesses looking for profits, and everyday people sharing what makes them happy. And then at the end, almost as an afterthought, were the arts, reminding us that we often have to get through all of the crap before we get to the good stuff.