Memorial Day, Small Town America...

I live so close to New York City, and in such a densely-populated area, that I tend to forget that I live in a fairly small town -- less than 25,000 people total. It's been around since the Revolution in one form or another, and there's a great deal of pride in community.

Days like tomorrow, it really comes out. The township Memorial Day parade gives every community organization the chance to assemble and show its pride in our country and our town. My first year living here, I went in a show of patriotism, expecting to see the high school marching band, the scouts, a veteran as grand marshall, maybe a jeep or two, and I wasn't disappointed. However, I wasn't expecting to see many of the others that assembled and marched, like:

• The Red Hat Society
• Every type of township vehicle (DPW front-end loader, anyone?)
• The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (who knew?)
• The local Elks 'Hogs' motorcycle group, roaring through suburbia
• Residents of the local seniors housing in their air conditioned minibus, waving from behind tinted windows

Everybody has their chance to march through the streets, albeit only briefly through downtown (still haven't figured that one out, either), and down tree-lined residential neighborhoods. And they all get the same enthusiastic greeting from the folks along the parade route.

I don't know if there's a conscious effort to be so inclusive. I can only hope that someone in the township recreation department has a private smile as he or she grants permission for some of these groups to march. I like to think that there's someone there who enjoys the slight, very slight degree of weirdness it lends the town.

And I'd like to hope it's not the same person who organizes the pumpkin drop after the annual Halloween parade. There's no better use of one's tax dollars than parking a fire department ladder truck in the middle of town to hurl a huge orange gourd from 30 feet to the pavement below. And for some odd reason, the kids love to run to grab the big pieces.

Gotta love living in a town that has stuff like that. And before I moved here, I never knew this kind of benign weirdness was lurking.