When you can have your Independence Day cancelled by bureaucrats on 45 minutes' notice, you are not citizens, you are not even subjects - you are wards of the state, a state that no longer recognizes you as capable of functioning adulthood.Insufficiently Independent to Hold an Independence Day Parade :: SteynOnline
by Mark Steyn Steyn on America July 6, 2015
So, on Saturday morning, I was in Haverhill, NH working on my rash. I'd had to swing by Steyn Global HQ in Woodsville for one reason or another and got there about 9.45, and already the elderly veterans and widows and spinsters were camped out in their lawn chairs holding their miniature flags in readiness for the 11 o'clock parade. Gotta get there early and grab a good spot. But I figured I could get the work wrapped up at the office and still skedaddle back to the main drag and catch the Fourth of July observances. For decades, Woodsville has joined with Wells River across the bridge in Vermont to host one of the biggest Independence Day parades around. Between them they have a population of about 1,500, but folks come from neighboring towns because they seem to like the whole twin-state vibe. So the parade always starts in Woodsville, marches down Central Street, and over the Connecticut River into Vermont where it wraps up on Main Street, Wells River.
Anyway, one thing led to another and I had my head stuck in some rather tedious materials from my upcoming trial of the century when I heard the sound of the band approaching. So I thought, whoops, the festivites are underway, I better get up to Central Street. And by the time I got to the front door and out of the building, I didn't need to hurry along to the parade because the parade had hurried along to me. Instead of heading straight on and over the bridge to Vermont, all the beauty queens and 4-H floats and fire trucks had hung a left and come straight past my office door.
Which struck me as weird. Because they'd never done that before. And judging from the thin knot of people out on the street to watch no one else had been expecting it. So the parade went down the hill and petered out at the community field.
And afterwards I found out what had happened. Over on the Vermont side at 10.15am - 45 minutes before the parade was due to start - the one-man police department, Constable Glen Godfrey, had noticed that the "detour" signs had not been posted on the roads. I wouldn't want to make this sound more complicated a problem than it is: By "roads", I mean that Wells River basically has two of them - an east-west road and a north-south road. And Constable Godfrey had three-quarters of an hour to use his wit and ingenuity to find a workaround, to show a little bit of - oh, what's the word? - "independence" of mind.
Instead, with 45 minutes to go, a part-time village constable canceled the Independence Day parade.
-go to link-
No comments:
Post a Comment