"A real life nephew of my uncle Sam. Born on the 4th of July."

I've never been to a 4th of July parade before, but that's how I spent much of this morning. SlowTalker and I got to the tiny city of Piedmont around 9:15 a.m. Most of the spots along the parade route were staked out. But with some diligence we were able to find a suitable patch to set our chairs. Then we headed up to the Rotary Club Pancake Breakfast.

They played "Yankee Doodle," "God Bless America," and a few other patriotic standards. I got to learn that SlowTalker has a beautiful voice.

The parade was fun...there were lot's of old cars with people who live in the city riding in them. They threw candy to the crowd, so kids were scampering out to pick them up. The little girl next to us had her pockets positively bursting. Her parents kept explaining she'd have to give some of her candy away, and she would just look at them with a blank stare, then run for some more.

There were a ton of dogs! I was in doggy heaven. Labs, goldens, spaniels, aussies, pugs, terriers...sigh! Many of them had cute bandanas or other accoutrements forced upon them by their humans.

Afterward, there was a show in a positively crowded park. Lot's of dancing...lot's of talk of barbque. And me? I tried to keep from getting burnt. I think I succeeded.

SlowTalker and I took a walk away from the action, then I read him the Declaration of Independence (which was in our program). It really is a pretty radical document. The magnitude of the stance that they were taking was unprecidented. It's pretty amazing that those colonies lasted a decade, let alone two plus centuries.

I took lot's of pictures which I will share another day. Put me in the sun for an hour and I seem to be wasted for the rest of the day...so here's the inadvertent best of the pictures of today.