Best of Beth Ashley: A memorable national birthday

Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2008.

For most of us, the Fourth of July is a pleasant long weekend. We enjoy it, but give little thought to its being our national birthday.

This Fourth was an especially pleasant one for me, but patriotic thoughts materialized, too.

My friend and I went to the Twin Cities parade, with front row sidewalk seats.

Ellie and Ricardo had set up several rows of chairs and a table for food: croissant sandwiches, watermelon, stuffed eggs, mimosas.

Parade watchers were in a celebratory mood, waving flags, carrying kids on their shoulders, wheeling back and forth on skates and bicycles.

Houses and storefronts were draped in bunting. Claudette wore a foot-high red, white and blue hat Randie and Jessa had American flags painted on their big toenails.

There’s something about that flag, no matter where I see it.

First off, it’s a glorious, splashy design, unmistakably ours.

When I am in a foreign country and see it, I smile, no matter how angry I may be with our international posture at the moment. It represents my home, my past, my comfort zone. In spite of everything, it gives me a huge sense of pride: in a troubled world we are — in spite of huge flaws — the world’s best land to be free, the home of the generous and brave.

So there I was at the parade, a huge rosette of stars and stripes on my lapel, thanking my stars for the accident that made me an American.

One of the joys of having lived in Marin a long time is knowing so many faces. As the parade wound by, we waved at its stars: Larkspur Mayor Kathy Hartzell in a a horse-drawn surrey, Rep. Lynn Woolsey in an open convertible, Assemblyman Jared Huffman on a motorized scooter. There were horses and pipe bands, the Redwood High football team, tribes of Little Leaguers, a World War II tank, Boy Scouts and a troupe of lesbian, gay, transgender acrobats from San Francisco.

How were there enough people left over to jam the sidewalks, when half of the Twin Cities was in the parade?

Afterward, my friend and I hiked to the park by the fire station, where families had sprawled out for picnics, kids were lined up for the bounce-house, and T-shirts and jewelry and art were offered for sale.

We went to a not-so-private party in a house on Redwood Avenue: a stream of people trooped up the driveway or through the front door, bearing six-packs and potato salad; host Eric shucked oysters on the back patio. We sat for a time on the front porch, watching the neighbors stream by.

It felt like old-time America: open doors, old friends, unplanned togetherness.

Back home, our next-door neighbors were celebrating, too, and invited us over for barbecue.

Saturday — what a bonus, another free day! — we hung out, did errands, took naps and went to the county fair.

Mid-afternoon, my granddaughter Kelly Ann, the world’s most adorable 7-year-old, and Erica, 9, the sweet girl next door, set up a lemonade stand at the end of our street. Erica’s mom helped them make pitchers of drinks and batches of chocolate chip and sugar cookies; they set out a table and cash box and called out “lemonade and cookies” to cars that passed by.

Their parents were their first customers. I ate two cookies, destroying a two-day-old diet.

Many cars drove purposely by, but a lot stopped, usually driven by kindly older men or moms who remembered lemonade stands of their youth. Greenbrae residents we hadn’t seen for years turned up, some refusing refreshments, just forking over money.

It’s hard to resist two little girls crying “lemonade and cookies!” (Did I mention that my granddaughter is the world’s most adorable 7-year-old?) They split a profit of $50, more than the rest of us earned all day.

By late afternoon we were at the fair, musing our way through a relaxed, smiling crowd. Our eventual goal was the pavilion where America had scheduled a concert. Gil assured me I would know some of the tunes (which he had played every day in his mid-teens), but I was basically clueless, having ended my pop music vibes with Sgt. Pepper and the Rolling Stones. The fun was in the bobbing hand-clapping crowd, and the delight on Gil’s face as he mime-drummed his way through each song.

Even Kelly Ann and I knew the last tune: “The Horse With No Name.” Yeah-yeah-yeah.

We headed for the carnival rides and watched Kelly hold on for two loops on a roller coaster.

Fireworks topped off the day and the waning evening. The sky lit up with blossoms of light, each reaching higher than the last. We oohed and aahed, appreciating the fair’s gift to us all.

Gil is the original Pollyanna/optimist, who never spends a day he doesn’t like.

Saturday, he said, was perfect. I had to agree.

What’s not to like about family, friends, nostalgia — and all the lemonade you can drink?