Anniversary Parade....

We attended the annual Ian and Suzanne's Anniversary Parade held in the neighboring town of Thomaston. They had spend *many* years practicing and preparing to help us celebrate our anniversary and are pretty good at it by now.

It is about as perfect as a small town parade can be. The "floats" are pretty surreal...I have included two examples in the photos (one of a huge fiberglass lobster and the other a big dragon that was "for" St. George (get it, St. George and the Dragon...)...built by and designed after Dragon Cement (and pulled by one for their trucks).

Pretty much every fire truck in every adjoining town joins in and has a merry time showing off how many different siren sounds they have and how many children they can make cover their ears and/or cry. The photographed truck comes from our very own St. George volunteer fire dept.

Interestingly, both the Knox County Dems and Repubs marched they always do. In past years, they tend to have pretty much even numbers of equally riled up folk...you know, people willing to wander along a parade route for a mile or so in the hot sun while holding political signs...urgh. This year was different.

The dems had a *huge* crowd with folks carrying a big Obamarama banner, many small signs and signs for pretty much every major and minor dem running here in Maine (see pictured for the start of them). They had at least 100 people or so. The repubs, on the other hand, had no more than 15 people or so, nearly all carrying signs for one local cadidate. There was *not one* McCain sign and *not one* Susan Collins sign. It was a very interesting comparrison, one group huge and fired up...chanting, laughing and having fun. The other small, subdued and...trudging...for lack of a better term...

My personal favorite was Mr. Johnson, who is running for County Commissioner. He is in his seventies, still working full time (after several major surguries, etc). He can be seen driving the big tractorn in the parade. I may move my registered residence just so I can vote for him.

I did not include pictures of all...it is really quite wonderful...with a good touch of performance art theatre of the absurd. There are bands (see the Lincolnville Band on their flatbed truck), bagpipers, pirates (really), several charmingly fringe religous groups, the Maine Militia showed off their big ex-military trucks, folks who like their cars/trucks/motorcycles a bit too much, Shriners, Kwiwanas and folks like that. Then there are the Renaissance knights and maidens (knights fighting along the entire route with swords, the women in heavy gowns looking hot (literally, less so figuratively)... A good time is had by all.

I can not recommend getting married on the 4th of July highly enough. Everything is festive. People hang banners and flags and have picnics and parades and fairs and fireworks. All for us. Happy Anniversary Day, everyone.