Festive Fourth Combines Frolic, Patriotism : Holiday: Barbecues and the beach draw crowds. But some find time to ponder the meaning of independence.

The words of civic responsibility rang out clearly from the loudspeakers at the 35th annual Independence Day celebration at Palos Verdes Estates.

“There can be no doubt that freedom requires responsibility,” a high school junior wrote in an award-winning essay that was read at the event. “Freedom without responsibility is the definition of the word anarchy. “

But only moments before, anarchy seemed to rule the day as eager children tried to eat their way to a messy victory in a pie-eating contest as parents watched and laughed.

The combination of patriotism and pleasure prevailed throughout Los Angeles County on Wednesday as residents poured out of their homes into bright sunshine, lining streets for parades and gathering around barbecue grills with family and friends.

It was a day for reunions, memories, egg tosses and three-legged races.

And, of course, for fireworks.

Traffic was snarled around Pierce College Wednesday evening as an estimated 15,000 people arrived at the campus to watch the Valley’s biggest fireworks display. Officials at Cal State Northridge expected a crowd of at least 10,000 people for fireworks and performances by sky- divers, the Los Angeles Raiders’ cheerleaders and music and dance groups.

Early Wednesday, about 250,000 people got a jump on both their neighbors and the sun at the fourth annual pre-dawn fireworks display north of Santa Monica Pier. They arrived in droves--some even spent the night--congesting streets and packing the pier, the beach and cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Fireworks exploded and sent waves of color shimmering in the sky to the accompaniment of the Los Angeles Pops Orchestra. The crowd oohed and aahed and occasionally burst into applause.

“It was a great audio-visual experience,” said Eric Hammerlund, a 19-year-old architecture student at Woodbury University. “It was really good to hear everybody applaud with you.”

Others went beyond the purely audio-visual and turned the experience into a gastronomic one. Moo Lim, 40, with his wife and young son, came armed with a camping stove and a cache of coffee, noodles, chicken, beef and shrimp.

The Santa Monica event offered a respite from the sweltering heat in Rosemead, Lim said. “It’s fun. Last year we came with six families in our neighborhood.”

The turnout for the fireworks display, aptly named “Dawn’s Early Light,” was the largest since the event was moved to early morning from evening three years ago in an attempt to reduce both traffic and crime.

But violence marred the festivities when two men were shot in unrelated incidents, according to police, who said the wounds were not life-threatening. Fights also broke out along the beach.

Most of those attending were unaware of the violence and simply enjoyed themselves.

For those who thought the rockets’ red glare came too early at Santa Monica, Venice Beach offered another kind of glistening display at a more civilized hour.

Scores of muscular, tanned, oiled bodies, for which the beach is famous, struck poses before an admiring crowd. The owners of the bodies were competing in the annual Muscle Beach Open sponsored by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department.

Hoots, whistles and screams filled the sea-salted air as the audience expressed its approval for the young men in Speedos who flexed their biceps and the bikini-clad women who also flexed and blew kisses to the crowd.

However, one man who dared only to identify himself as “Jim” sounded a note of mild dissent. “I like females in good shape, but not muscular,” he said.

“Heck,” he added, gazing at one particularly well-toned female physique, “she’s bigger than I am. If push came to shove, she’d beat me up.”

The holiday was not without its serious side, especially for those with ties to homelands not so free. It was also a day for some to express their displeasure with the way things are in this country.

About a dozen people in southeast Los Angeles protested police barricades and INS detention centers.

The rally at Ross Snyder Park was dubbed “Committee for An Appropriate Celebration of July Fourth” and culminated in the torching of an American flag. Two people were later arrested for battery on an officer and interfering with an officer.

Meanwhile, members of Lithuanian, Estonian, Polish and Vietnamese groups, among others, joined with Chinese residents in a “Let Freedom Ring Rally” outside the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. A Styrofoam and plastic replica of the “Goddess of Democracy,” the American-inspired symbol of freedom for the Chinese students who protested in Beijing a year ago, stood among the rally’s 40 participants.

Addressing the crowd from a makeshift podium, Texas native Glory Rocha-Provencia said, “In Texas we have a saying: ‘Remember the Alamo.’ Now we have another saying: ‘Remember Tian An Mien Square.’ ”

Ting-po Huang, a Chinese immigrant, agreed with Rocha-Provencia, adding, “many of us immigrants are more appreciative of what this country is all about: liberty and a democratic form of government.”

His patriotism found an echo across town from Joseph Shabera, 54, a Marin County man who met in Los Angeles with nearly twenty friends from his childhood in New York.

As he geared up for a game of old-fashioned stickball, which he and the others played as children, Shabera said, “Most of us are first-generation, and we don’t take the country for granted.” For him the stickball game represented “tradition, remembrance and an appreciation of the things that this country affords us.”

Contributing to this report were staff writers Russell Ben-Ali, Lily Dizon, Phillip Gollner and Monica Rodriguez. Related STORIES: B3, B5, B9