The Glorious Fourth takes place on only one day of the year, but Mansfield history actually exists in a dimension that stands outside of time: where it is free from all limitations of the sequential ticking of life’s clock.
On the timeline—as on the internet—it is always exactly today, always exactly now; and the whole entire range of the past is available at every moment. It is possible through the gift of archival photography to have a Fourth of July parade any time.
So, right now! Let’s have a parade!
A good parade has a series of new scenes unfolding: a sequence of performances and spectacles—just like a timeline. In fact, a timeline is pretty much simply a parade.
Here is a sequence of parade scenes from Mansfield history, from many days of the year, from many years of the last century.
These scenes vary in intensity—as do the units of every parade—with some being more casual, intimate; and some being huge and outsized: appropriately exercising the full measure of American liberty.
Every parade is a practical exercising of our Constitutional right: the right of free assembly. Every public march and pageant celebrates that freedom, which sounds quite a bit easier than it actually is: as all of the planning committees for a hundred years can attest.
Planning committees for parades in Mansfield have devised all manner of routes by which their entertainments can proceed. Today Mansfield’s parades generally go in one direction, and not too wearingly far; but in 1912 they had far fewer scruples and much more wishful thinking: their route on the Fourth of July began on Park Avenue West at Mulberry Street, marching east to Main, around Central Park, north on Main to Sixth, east on Sixth to Diamond, south on Diamond to Fourth, west on Fourth to Bowman, south on Bowman to Park Avenue West, and east back to where they began.
That is the kind of unbridled enthusiasm we can use for inspiration. Let’s get going—Strike up the Band!
