A Day of Pride and Patriotism

Under gray skies, it wasn’t starting out as a picture-perfect Fourth of July.

But that didn’t dampen the spirits of hundreds of people who gathered along Ventura’s Main Street on Wednesday morning for the Pushem-Pullem Parade, an Independence Day rite in which average Joes from all walks of life march through the city celebrating their freedom to be just as they please.

Street fair smells of incense, cake and pizza mingled in the mist, and a flutist played as children rode bicycles and scooters wrapped in red, white and blue streamers.

Tattooed bikers in denim and leather strolled alongside, having parked their Harleys on side streets.

Wheelchair users rolled past, their spokes threaded with gold and silver tinsel.

Lee Schroder, 53, of Oxnard, who calls himself the “One Man Band,” wore a stars-and-stripes hard hat, waved a flag attached to a broomstick and carried a boombox blasting John Philip Sousa marches--repeating a ritual he started in 1988.

Other celebrations were unfolding throughout Southern California.

In Long Beach, anarchists staged a symbolic takeover of a power plant, while in Los Angeles, quaintly costumed soldiers re-created the city’s first Independence Day ceremony.

In Ventura County, the Ojai Lions Club put together a daybreak pancake breakfast, while a host of presidential look-alikes gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley.

Police and firefighters in Ventura County were busy Wednesday night responding to reports of gunshots and firecrackers.

In Fillmore, sheriff’s deputies broke up a brawl outside a market. At least three people were beaten badly enough to require hospital treatment, Sgt. Larry Meyers said.

Earlier, seven people were injured in a collision between a minivan and a motor home in Piru, the California Highway Patrol said.

Back in Ventura, the sun poked through the clouds, and dancers twisted and spun as a swing band played. Vendors sold toys, jewelry and clothing. Community groups set up booths to broadcast their ideological messages.

Green Party volunteer Betty Eagle was talking to potential recruits about solar power, Ralph Nader and public-owned utilities when a military jet on a ceremonial flight zoomed overhead, setting off cheers and applause from parade watchers.

Eagle sighed. “They’re standing here applauding the military, which is a total waste of money in our opinion. Meanwhile, half of them don’t have health insurance.”

Back along the parade route, in one of the more elaborate entries, members of the Rastovich family of Ventura dressed as pioneers, taking to heart “A Salute to Our Heroes.”

With a plaque reading “Work Horse” slung from his neck, Rob Rastovich, an Internet programmer dressed in cowboy garb, pulled a miniature Conestoga wagon, fabricated over the weekend from scrap lumber and canopied with a baby crib liner.

Inside the wagon sat 4-year-old twins Tora and Lexi; 5-year-old Sam; and 4-month-old Max. Their mother, Colleen, followed, wearing a flag-patterned apron and a gingham bonnet.

“My family were pioneers,” Rob Rastovich said, huffing, puffing and occasionally wincing as he ran over his toes with the cart. “They came over in a Conestoga wagon. They were looking for land.”

Generations after his family set up a homestead in Oregon, he and his wife own a modest home in suburban east Ventura, an irony not lost on the couple. “We’ve gone from thousands of acres down to a quarter-acre,” Rastovich laughed.

Still, he likes to think they live by the pioneer ethic.

“The greatest American hero is the workhorse,” he said.

In downtown Los Angeles, celebrants turned the calendar back to 1847, as soldiers in period garb handed out copies of the Declaration of Independence and fired cannons.

Muskets slung over their shoulders, and fife-and-drum playing at their sides, several hundred history buffs gathered at the foot of a long-forgotten outpost called Ft. Moore, now the site of the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters.

Speakers described a cheery Fourth of July at Ft. Moore 154 years ago, saying the soldiers and a group of Californios--descendants of the Spaniards who first conquered the region--celebrated together well into the night.

“It just gives me chills,” said Carol Autenrieth, 62, whose great-great-grandfather marched with the battalion and helped dig the footings for the fort.

In Long Beach, about 200 anarchists, activists and environmentalists symbolically ousted the owners of the Alamitos power plant, Virginia-based AES Corp.

Protesters marched with a solar-powered sound stage to the generating station entrance, where they posted a mock seizure order, passed out pamphlets, sang and otherwise milled about for 45 minutes.

“We fought against one kind of tyranny--Britain,” said Medea Benjamin, a rally organizer. “Now we’re fighting against a new kind of tyranny--greedy out-of-state energy companies.”

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Times staff writers Duke Helfand, Geoffrey Mohan, Ana Gorman, Sarah Hale, and Karima Haynes contributed to this report.