If anyone was looking for the ultimate display of patriotism on the Fourth of July, it didn’t get any more red, white and blue, Mom and apple pie than at Leona Burnham’s house on Maxwelton Beach.
Watching what at 50 minutes in duration may well have been the longest Maxwelton Fourth of July parade ever, Burnham, who is well past the age of doing strange things to her hair to annoy her parents, stood at the side of the road with red, white and blue dyed hair, a flag in one hand, and her house decked out behind her in various versions of Old Glory. Beside her and across the street, almost every other relative or friend with a head of white hair sported the same dye job and holiday attitude.
“We’re flying our colors,” said Burnham, who has lived on Maxwelton Beach for more than 20 years.
They did indeed, along with thousands of other people on South Whidbey. Starting Wednesday night with the eighth annual Celebrate America event, which was sponsored by the Whidbey Evangelical Alliance, the island took on a fairlike feeling. Though rain threatened, then finally fell that night, the park was jammed with children and adults out for burgers, gyros and mini donuts, patriotic music and the event’s annual fireworks display.
Though the pyrotechnics were able to cut through the wet weather, it seemed by Thursday morning that the Maxwelton parade would not. A steady rain sogged South Whidbey overnight, threatening to put a damper on the fun down on the beach.
But as if to avoid breaking a six-year streak of perfect weather, the sun popped out about an hour before the parade and held off rain clouds until the last of more than 70 parade units had finished traversing the half-mile route. Dana Gilroy, one of the parade’s organizers, said she was thankful that no rain fell on the classic cars, tractors, paper mache animals in the Procession of Species unit or on the hundreds of children and adults who turned out to march.
Gilroy said she was even more astounded with the turnout at the event.
“It looked like a lot of people,” she said.
This year’s parade was its 90th annual appearance at Maxwelton Beach. Gilroy estimated this year’s crowd at 5,000 to 6,000 people.
