Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 4, 1993 TAG: 9307040022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was hot enough under the steamy afternoon sun to produce the illusion that you were celebrating Independence Day in an equatorial banana republic instead of the United States.
Viva Guatemala!
Searing temperatures have been an often-distracting characteristic of the holiday as long as America has been free.
Philadelphia's early summer heat in 1776 pestered Thomas Jefferson while he composed the Declaration of Independence.
Realizing this, Blacksburg's revelers reviewed the town's Independence Day parade from the shade of trees and store awnings as a bank clock flashed 94 degrees.
Out on Main Street, a fellow wearing a pith helmet brandished a net as he chased a Killer Bee on a bicycle.
Close behind chugged an old orange Volkswagen with a banner that read: Entomology - We're Good for What Bugs You.
Despite the heat, that was no mirage. Neither was WKEX radio's live broadcast from the front lawn of McCoy Funeral Home.
The local Sierra Club's entry in the parade was a sign - "Impact of the Auto" - displayed across the hood of a car that had several fuzzy stuffed animals stuck to its grill.
It was enough to make parade-watchers come up with the the perfect alternative theme for a hot Fourth of July parade - America the Melting Pot.
Members of a Brownie troop dressed in international costumes carried a banner asserting "We All Come Together."
A pickup truck was hung with placards calling for freedom, rights and diversity. It carried two riders, one costumed as the Statue of Liberty, the other blindfolded and grasping the scales of justice.
"E Pluribus Unum - Out of Many, One," read the pickup's tailgate sign.
Later in line were floats from local churches, declaring "Christ in Every Phase of Life," and "One Nation Under God."
And drivers of jacked-up four-wheel-drive pickups proudly revved their engines as they rolled along.
Shade was also at a premium for those who gathered to celebrate the day and the nation in Radford's Bisset Park.
Folks huddled in the shade of maple, sycamore and willow trees that grow amid the open spaces of this New River flood plain.
Fortunately, the river caught enough of a breeze to unfurl Old Glory and keep most people from wilting in the humidity.
At the park's gazebo, a couple performed religious karaoke over a loudspeaker while children had sack races and tossed water balloons.
The kids ran frantically about the park, fueled by solar energy, while the parents and grown-ups watched - immobile as gargoyles - from the cool shade of trees, canopies and party tents.
Perhaps the bountiful cuisine slowed them down as much as the heat. Vendors offered cotton candy, fried apple pies, pork rinds, snow cones, Polish sausages, cajun chili dogs, funnel cakes and washtubs full of iced soft drinks.
All of that fare made the boy who darted about the park gleefully squeezing a whoopee cushion seem prophetic.
At nightfall, the air cooled and the holiday's heat transformed into colorful explosions that lit the sky.
Fireworks symbolize this summertime holiday, which ignited the freedom flame America has burned for so long.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.