The Fourth of July is Coming

The Fourth of July falls on Saturday this year, and if the weather holds as forecast, it should be a beautiful day and evening to share with friends and neighbors. I thought that I'd repost an excerpt from my "Hidden Mt. Lebanon" series from a couple of years ago. Look for me Saturday evening at Mt. Lebanon High School.

I'll start with a confession: The Fourth of July is my second favorite holiday -- Thanksgiving is #1 -- and it's one of the few that comes with a built-in excuse to celebrate publicly, with a lot of people that you don't necessarily know. As a child, I used to go to the Fourth of July parade in Redwood City. When our kids were young and we lived in Oakland, we would drive up to Piedmont on the Fourth and watch a perfectly silly parade. The highlight was the Lawn Chair Drill Team. When we moved to Mt. Lebanon, we arrived on July 1. Right away, we went looking for something similar.

We found it at the high school. Lebo has no parade on the Fourth, but we do have something that serves just as well as community glue: the fireworks show. Because Western PA is home to the Zambelli family, and probably for other reasons, lots of communities in the area have great fireworks on the Fourth. I don't know how Mt. Lebanon compares on that score, and where there is the promise of a great fireworks show, lots of people gather. So Mt. Lebanon may not be special on this score either (or on others -- another Hidden Mt. Lebanon chapter to come!). But I do know that if we're in town on the Fourth, we're at the high school in the evening, along with thousands of other people.

The fireworks are terrific (and loud!), but there's also a palpable and visible sense of community all around you. We walk to the show, accompanied by dozens of neighbors. We spread out on lawn chairs and blankets and beds of pickup trucks. The party spreads up on to Washington Road and down below the main parking lot; there are satellites at Markham and probably other places. Unlike high school football games, where some people in the stands want to watch the game while others simultaneously use the evening for socializing, at the fireworks show the action is neatly divided into "before" and "during." "During," you have no choice but to watch and/or listen to the action in the sky. "Before," however, is all strolling and chatting and playing with the kids and watching them play. This is Mt. Lebanon at its least self-conscious and most comfortable, neighbors and friends enjoying each others' company.