Patriotism on Display in Surf City

For Alice Mason and her girlfriends, the Fourth of July started on the Second.

On Saturday morning, they staked out a patch of grass on Huntington Beach’s Main Street for Monday’s parade, spending the next 48 hours singing, chatting and gluing rhinestones on their red, white and blue Hawaiian shirts.

“This is the holiday that Huntington Beach does best,” said Mason, 50, raising her voice as the Lynwood High School band marched by playing “God Bless America.” “This is a big city, but on days like today it has a real small-town feel.”

Despite its grand billing as the largest Fourth of July lineup west of the Mississippi, the beach city’s parade seems to attract those such as Mason looking for a folksy, glitz-free celebration.

All along the 3.5-mile route, parade participants greeted neighbors and schoolmates. “Hi, Joe!” a girl yelled to a blushing Boy Scout. A square-dancer broke from her group’s formation to run over and embrace a friend.

Even strangers got the friendly treatment.

“Uncle Sam, we want you!” screamed three teenage girls as a man with a long white beard strolled down the street, his stars-and-stripes overcoat fluttering in the breeze.

The crowd seemed to save their loudest cheers for the military groups, including an Air National Guard band, a float of Vietnam veterans and a green truck filled with Pearl Harbor survivors.

“It’s a great honor to be out here and see how much respect people still have for us so many years later,” said William Anderson, 83, a sailor aboard the destroyer Patterson when Pearl Harbor was bombed 64 years ago.

As in years past, about 250,000 people lined the parade route. At some intersections, people stood seven deep, swaying on their tip-toes or clambering on top of cars for a better look as parade participants rolled down the street in homespun style.

Girls blew bubbles on the Orange County Memorial Medical Center float as speakers blared “Brown Eyed Girl.” Girls dressed as Indian princesses walked hand in hand with their parents as marching bands played patriotic standards and women from Grace Lutheran Church belted out Christian tunes. A monk on the Interfaith Council float strummed bluegrass on a guitar.

On the sidelines, many parade-goers found creative ways to display their patriotism. Red, white and blue found its way onto feather boas, silk flower leis and bikinis. Red and blue paint were streaked onto one Jack Russell terrier’s fur, and Peanut, a dachshund cavorting nearby, wore a blue harness covered in white stars.

“Everybody loves a parade,” said Peanut’s owner, Bill Mills, 69, who lives a block from the parade route. “I love seeing how the community comes out to support good ol’ patriotism.”