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Fireworks, The Fourth, and Flying Tires

With apologies to Garrison Keillor, it's been a quiet week in Milton, my hometown.

I always have high expectations for the Independence Day parade. With past parades featuring runaway tractors and the euthanizing of a horse, the bar is set high for something strange to happen. (Thankfully, we didn't have runaway horses, like what tragically happened in Iowa.)

Every year, the blankets, tarps and chairs appear earlier on the terrace along the parade route. This year, the streets were lined by 3 pm the day before the parade. I liked the new creative touch some folks used, utilizing yellow caution tape to make sure their spot wasn't pilfered.

The parade itself, as Steve Knox noted in his blog earlier this week, was a typical feel-good parade but it didn't live up to its predecessors in some ways. There were no Shriner cars, no guy on a high unicycle juggling, no woman being massaged on a float. The horses are now at the end of the parade so the stepping-in-poop factor was missing. There was, however, an antique hearse with glass sides – all the better to see the creepy skull and candles display inside. What that float was advertising, I have no idea.

With a metric ton of elections coming up this fall, I expected the parade to be crawling with candidates. But I counted only a lucky 13 working the parade route. I ended up with a Scott Walker brown bag, and dueling Russ Feingold and Brett Davis sports schedules. I found it interesting that the Brett Davis handout included NASCAR and hunting schedules, while Feingold's included an NPR schedule. (OK, I made that up about NPR.)

The celebration at Schilberg Park featured a surprise carnival. It had been announced earlier that due to a booking conflict, there would be no carnival this year. But when everyone showed up Sunday night for the fireworks, suddenly, there was a carnival. Apparently, the group from Rhythm and Booms in Madison saw an opportunity to earn an extra day's worth of revenue and made their way down in the middle of the night. It was an unexpected treat.

The carnival wasn't the only surprise at Schilberg. This year's fireworks were surprisingly brief, ten minutes at best. Milton has always prided itself as having one of the best fireworks displays in the area, but this one left people wondering, “Was that it?” It wasn't until the lights for the softball diamond started to reilluminate that folks knew for sure that it was really done. Despite the short show at Schilberg, there was no lack of fireworks around the city, particularly in our neighborhood. They continued on into Monday night, when a remnant from a rocket fell back to earth about ten feet from my kids as they walked down College Street.

Rockets weren't the only things airborne around the neighborhood this week. They were joined in flight by, of all things, tires.

My wife and I were walking down High Street, which was adorned this week with “Road Closed” barricades in preparation for a major reconstruction. Thus far, those signs have been mostly ignored by motorists. One such case was some yahoo in a beat-up old Jeep with writing all over his windows. This guy flew between the barricades at about 40 mph, then hit a dip which sent his rusty beater bouncing. This dislodged a spare tire (I assume it had been stored underneath the car) which went flying, took a gigantic bounce of its own and took out a mailbox not far behind where we were walking. The driver saw what happened, but never stopped.

Meanwhile, a block over on College Street, I witnessed two gigantic tires pressing down the white picket fence in front of a home. The day before, I had seen these same tires sitting across the street, on the lawn in front of Whitford Hall. I presume these tires are used for strength training at the new extreme fitness center located in Whitford. Since Whitford Hall sits on a hill overlooking the home (and the fence), I have to believe these tires went out for a roll.

Yes, one never tires of living in Milton....