Thursday, July 05, 2007

July 5, 2007

Well, I woke up around 2 am and thought of some great stuff to write about here. Then, when I finally got back to sleep, I forgot most of it and dreamed of walking miles in the rain with a nose bleed, my eyes bleeding and no shoes... Then the dream continued with enormous, perfectly working bathrooms, soft towels, silk bathrobes and ... Well, let's not go there...
Anyway, yesterday was the township's Centennial Celebration. We got to the avenue and got to see the parade, which, as usual, made me cry. My dad (who had his stroke and surgery at this time of year 10 years ago) would have loved the fire department's "float" - with the fire wagon they probably had when the original City Hall and Public Library (previously the Methodist Church, by the way) burned down in 1923, I believe. There were also two teams of bagpipers he would've liked, too - one Irish, I believe (from Elizabeth, NJ) and the other from Newark, who were Scots. The difference? The kilts were all green from Elizabeth and red from Newark. My church had the nicest float - it went with the centennial theme, unlike the other churches, which just made a big deal of being A) in Verona and B) being churches. The Verona United Methodist Church float had the altar from the church in the decade they had been "assigned" - the thirties - as well as two pews and a stained glass window, specially painted (on Plexiglas) and mounted in a wooden frame for the float. Nobody rode on the float, but on the side was "CH_ _ CH - what's missing? UR" on the side. The parishioners wore 30s style outfits and walked beside the float. It was beautiful. I will try to get a picture. I did not think to take a camera. The kids from one of the elementary schools was in 60s garb, with one of the kids dressed as Elvis. It was funny. One of the schools (the one in the wealthiest section of town) had a school bus which had pictures of the staff blown up and mounted in the windows and some of the kids hanging out some of the windows. Just as an aside - this town doesn't have school buses to take kids to school- the town is about 2 square miles and has four elementary schools and under 14,000 people at last census. Only special ed kids are bussed to school, IIRC. Of course, there was the usual slew of sports kids in their spiffy little uniforms, sports parents in their spiffy little t-shirts and the drill team and marching band (not in their uniforms, surprisingly, even though it was cool enough this year, being around 69° at the time of the parade.). The Rescue Squad brought up the end of the parade and they had about 7 trucks. I am seriously surprised at that number... Steve said he figures it's all the senior citizens who rate the amount of Rescue Squad trucks...
There was a big party sort of deal in Verona Park afterward. There were booths with food, centennial items (I finally got the town historian's (that's Robert L. Williams) book of Verona photographs from years gone by) and stuff like free water in special bottles (That was my church - appropriately Biblical - Matthew 25:35). And all the rescue squad trucks were there. A older lady fell of the walkway in the park, so they got to do their thing right there. The lady was right behind Steve and fell of the side of the walkway. I don't know if she was badly hurt, but she landed on her arm - and she was one of those frail, though not quite really "elderly", ladies.
We had lunch at the former Anna Capri - now Capri Pizza (it's gone through two owners since it was Anna Capri) - and got home an hour or two before it began to rain. The fireworks were rained out and the lightning didn't start until really late - which was another thing that kept me awake a little.
The rain apparently didn't stop some of the illegal fireworks, as I heard a lot of non-thunder booming before the really heavy storms started.
A pretty nice day. Today is warmer, around 80° now at 1:55 pm, but cloudy. Probably storms tonight. So I'll take my umbrella.

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