There ain't nothin' like a small-town Fourth of July

One of the highlights of being back home is the annual Fourth of July celebration. In typical small-town fashion, everything happens exactly the same way every year. Pancake breakfast at 7 am, parade follows at 9, Friends of the Library used book sale in the basement of the library after the parade, flea market/craft fair and brat/burger/corn on the cob/beer stands in the park with live music from noon until sundown in the park, capped off with fireworks in the park at dusk.

But, this year there was a change. *Gasp, gasp* Some fatal breakage in the ancient kitchen at the community building rendered the making of pancakes and sausage impossible, so the whole breakfast was moved to the cafeteria at the K-12 school just down the street. Thank goodness. The old place was tiny, congested and nearly impossible to navigate. The school cafeteria area is spacious and is designed for mass food service and crowd control. Everybody stood around looking at the scene and shaking their heads. "Why didn't we do this years ago?" everybody asked.



But, due to concerns that the announcement in the paper and on local media and at the information bureau wasn't enough, the organizers hauled in a large road construction sign like this one:



to place on the corner by the community building redirecting everybody to the school. And, according to my sources on the street, they only announced it in every pause between floats during the parade.

So, the pancake breakfast, was, as always, hugely busy. On to the parade.

We're a tiny town (600 in town, less than 2,000 in the whole area) that attracts upwards of 10,000 visitors for the Fourth of July weekend. The running joke is that the entire town is in the parade while the visitors line the streets to watch. And we still have to recruit outside marching bands to flush things out a little bit. On the night of July 3rd, we had to make a last minute run down mainstreet at 10 pm for a late-night errand. People were already setting out chairs to reserve their spaces along the route. It's that big a deal.

The weather this Fourth of July was picture perfect. Highs in the low 70s/20s, clear blue sky, no wind. The crowds came to ooh and aww at the variety of features and get all the candy they could snare.



Post-parade is sheer insanity as everybody rushes to the library to snag the best $0.25-$2.00 book deals in the basement of the library. Enter at your own risk. Photography highly discouraged for your own safety.

Once the book beast is tamed, people scatter, some to get the last of the pancakes, some to get their brats and burgers and fleas, some to the hardware store and nick-nac stories and ice cream parlor on mainstreet. Within a couple of hours, though, town has pretty much emptied out and everybody is off to hit the lakes.



Then in the evening, they come. And they come and they come and they come. Like the final scene in The Field of Dreams. Drawn to the promise of light and bangs, they gather at the park with blankets and snacks and hope.

Last night was, once again, the perfect night. Cool, not a cloud in the sky. A nearly full moon welcomed us, shining just brightly enough to keep us from tripping over our neighbors, but not too ostentatiously as to outshine the pyrotechnics.



And the show begins.



Out little town spares no expense, and the show seems endless. Several times the whole crowd starts clapping, certain that that is the end. And yet more come until a final earth-shaking finale, punctuated by one last exploding star.

And we all go home. Those on foot feel very intelligent, indeed.

Another perfect Fourth of July in the perfect place to celebrate it.

The Girl of the Limbo-Lost

More than six months have past since I made my return to the United States, and it's nearly the Fourth of July. Summer's half over, and soon another fall and winter season will be upon us. And it's past due time that I publicly declare that the next phase of my life will most likely unfold right here in my hometown.

Notice I still have to throw the qualifier "likely" in there?

Just have to keep that door cracked.

But now that I've wedged it open - just in case, mind you, just keeping my options open - I feel free to say, I'm back home. So, rather than pretending to be waiting for the next big thing to happen, the next big country to add to my list, I'm going to sit right down and say, "Here I am, what can you teach me, Wisconsin?"

To those ends, I've taken on two independent consulting jobs. Already both of them have shown me that the things I learned living in places with strange food and even stranger languages is needed right here. It's disconcerting to realize that I've become a prodigal - I went out into the world searching for that worldly labor that would define my life. Now I've returned home to discover that work is waiting here. Yet, without having left, I would have never had the experience necessary to be able to do the work back home.

That doesn't mean the story ends. The story doesn't say the prodigal doesn't leave again, and it doesn't say that there isn't more to be learned. But for the time being I am going to take the time to understand where I come from in the light of where I have been.

Erica does D.C.

They say it's more about who you know than what you know. If you want to work you'd better network. So, after a few nibbles in the job market, I decided it was time to explore the full potential that is Washington, D.C.

I had a very productive week and enjoyed my visits with representatives of a variety of agencies working in the international public health and development scene. The information was helpful in helping me further define my direction for this next stage of my career.

But I also had a lot of fun.

Okay, so it rained. Really, it rained every day for the week I was there. The sun did come out: between the hours of 11 AM and 2:30 PM on Wednesday, May 6. I got sunburned - and bragged about it to all my friends stuck in cubicles who were convinced it had simply rained again that day. (And I began to wonder why I would want to be in a cubicle in the basement of a building where I wouldn't know if it rained or shined...)

I saw nearly a gazillion old friends, some for the first time in ten years! I am happy to see how people hardly change - and I hope that continues for years to come, since they are already some of the smarted, healthiest and most beautiful people I know.

I also had some spare time to see a few more of the smorgasbord of sights that is your national heritage. I also highly appreciate the fact that my friends who live so close rarely visit many of these national treasures - so I'm taking advantage of time now least I become a DC resident.

First visit was to the Library of Congress, in honor of my mother (the librarian)'s birthday:





I know, all your hometown libraries look like this.

Well, either way, next time I'm going to come up with some excuse to use their reading room. Shhhhhhhhhh.

I also did the requisite mall-walk (after the sun went back into hiding Wednesday afternoon) and took my requisite Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue pictures:



I also dove in and out of a few of the Smithsonians - but a few days simply could never do them any justice. The Museum of the American Indian was another first for me - and very enjoyable. Downstairs they featured some handmade sea, river and lake watercraft, including this Wisconsin birch-bark canoe.

I spent a lot of time just wandering DC streets and stopping in green oases between meetings. The leaves were out and the flowers were blooming -made it a little harder to come back to Wisconsin!

The Smithsonian Ripley Garden seems to be recovering nicely after getting trampled flat during the Presidential inauguration.

But the gardeners still have some day-to-day problems to deal with:

Maybe it was the rain, maybe the fact that I discovered the function of the manual ISO setting, maybe just because DC designers seem to like building fountains, but for some reason I was inspired to photograph water.

The Sculpture Gardens:

Dupont Circle Navy Memorial:



Entrance to departments within the Justice Department:

Fountain Garden, Smithsonian garden:

DC is a great city for walking - as my shoes took me through nearly 30 miles in 3 days. Now, if only working in DC didn't entail working, I might actually enjoy just living there.