Independence Day in Alternative, Colorado

July fourth is a day filled with fun, food, family and friends. When we lived in Fort Collins we also had the pleasure of numerous activities downtown, and at the large City Park at the end of the day, we could enjoy an amazing fireworks display. We weren’t sure what to expect here in Alternative, and even though we asked around before the big day, we were still surprised at what came about.

The entire family went down to the lake, where the local park was and it seemed that everyone gathered starting around ten o’clock in the morning. 

From the north side of the lakeshore you can see Main Street not too far away. The view is pretty much unobstructed as there really aren’t too many trees in the way, and yet there are quite a few trees on that side of the lake to offer a goodly amount of shade. Main Street was important today because this particular year, Josh Pennywhistle, the local owner of the Pennywhistle Ice Cream Shoppe, had proposed that the town should have a Fourth of July parade. The newly elected Mayor, his honor Bobby Cornwaller, agreed, thinking that such a parade as an annual tradition, would really put Alternative on the map and more importantly, put his name in the history books as being the Mayor in office when the great tradition was started. Bobby had only lived in Alternative for a year and a half when he threw his name in the ring to become Mayor. In anticipation of a heated election, Bobby went all the way over to Fort Collins to have first-rate signs printed up and flyers with his picture on it to pass out all over town. Bobby had saved up a lot of money from his landscaping business that he had when he lived in Windsor. It was a good business, but he got tired of people and decided to take his savings and move to Alternative. He moved next door to Delores C. Flores, who had lived in Alternative most of her life, or at least that’s what she would tell people.

No one really knew much about Delores except for the things that she chose to let people know, so from the scraps and tidbits that she would throw out there, the community had the opportunity to build an entire history of what they thought described Delores. I think that secretly, Delores reveled in the stories and would neither confirm nor deny most of them. One of the biggest stories was that she was secretly royalty that had come to this part of the country to escape the rebels who had overthrown her country. She seemed to live comfortably with no obvious source of income, which only added fuel to the rumors.

When Bobby ran for Mayor, one of the first things he did was watch night and day for Delores to make an appearance outside of her home, and when he finally saw her, he rushed over to get her endorsement. She really had to think about it, but in the end, after Bobby had promised to have her front yard completely re-landscaped in whatever motif she desired, she said that she would lend her name to his election campaign. Truth be known, Bobby would have won at any rate. The only other person running against him was JoJo Gibbens. JoJo knew he wasn’t going to win seeing that he was only twenty-three and was only putting his name out there because he needed to experience what happened in an election for a political science assignment that he was doing at CSU.

So Bobby put together a committee to raise awareness for the upcoming Fourth of July parade, which would start exactly at 10:15AM and would run from the corner of Jefferson and Main, ten blocks to Lincoln Street. Bobby was pleased that the city fire truck, two police cars and representatives from the City Parks Department would be in the parade. Local author Benjamin Caruthers walked down the street hading out Tootsie Rolls and fliers about his books to the children watching. A few businesses followed with creative displays of patriotism and, of course, Josh Pennywhistle was the Grand Marshal since the parade was his idea in the first place. It wasn’t bad for a first parade. Afterward, there were a few booths in the park, some entertainment, and Clyde Simmons brought out his bar-b-que grill, which he often used to make hamburgers and hot dogs at block parties. The city paid for the eating supplies and Clyde cooked away. Bobby made a note to himself to invite vendors for the next year’s celebration.

After the fun and games ended, Bobby took the podium at the park and gave a grand speech talking about the significance of the day in our country’s history and in the history of Alternative. Carl Whithers made comments to himself in the crowd, just loud enough for those around him to hear, about how Alternative should secede from the union and become it’s own country, but how Bobby couldn’t be the King. The comment started a small ripple of laughter from the crowd, much to Bobby’s dismay, causing him to lose track of where he was in his speech. The flustered Mayor, simply threw up his hands and said, “Let the fireworks begin.”

Everyone enjoyed what was proclaimed to be the best fireworks show in the history of Alternative. The activities of the small town seemed to bring us all a little closer together and made our town shine and sparkle as bright and the fireworks.

As we walked home, my family and I were glad that we ended up moving here and looked forward to seeing what the rest of this year would bring to Alternative; a town where people find other things to do.