Holiday will rock while sun shines and sinks

Debbie Walstead plans to put her favorite 2-quart saucepan to use on the Fourth of July.

She’ll bang it in the kitchen band in the afternoon parade at Holiday Village mobile home park.

Then she’ll eat cake at the clubhouse and mingle.

While nightfall draws the masses to firework displays at parks and ballfields on Independence Day, daytime brings neighbors together.

Block parties, cookouts and parades are Fourth of July traditions in many parts of town.

Each has its twist: Horses are invited to a parade at Rustic Hills, an equestrian area southeast of Palmer Park, and a potbellied pig sometimes struts in the Old North End historic district parade.

It’s often a simple matter of getting the word out to keep the spark going.

HOLIDAY VILLAGE

Walstead is organizing the 1 p.m. parade at the 186-home senior park, where the average age is 72.

“We have so many older folks who shouldn’t drive or can’t drive or won’t drive,” said Walstead, 54, whose husband’s age qualified the Black Forest couple to move to the central Colorado Springs park a year ago.

“I decided, ‘I’m young, We have a street. We got people. Let’s have a parade.’”

In May, she started making parade signs.

She lined up llamas from Black Forest, clowns from Monument and a milk truck from nearby Sinton Dairy. She recruited neighbors to do their thing — one is showing off her costumed cats in a buggy. Another has a 1934 street rod.

The grand marshal is a World War II veteran. It doesn’t matter that he no longer has his uniform.

“Just practice waving,” she told him.

A CD will blast patriotic music as the parade makes the mile circuit.

“We are cranking it up,” she said.

Residents’ grandchildren will carry the signs announcing each unit.

Cake and ice cream will be served at the end.

“It’s not the Rose Bowl Parade,” she said. “It’s a birthday party.”

FOOD FOR THE FIT

Even the fitness-minded get a break from counting fat grams on the Fourth.

The Briargate YMCA will serve about 1,000 hamburgers and hotdogs at a community festival open to the public.

Popcorn, snow cones, watermelon and cotton candy round out the menu at the YMCA near the new Memorial Hospital North.

“We used to do fireworks,” said YMCA spokeswoman T.J. Kittelson, “but no longer because of all the buildings.”

The fest, in its seventh year, runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Doors will be open 7 a.m.-2 p.m., and nonmembers are invited to use the facility’s gym, pool and fitness center.

There will be games, face painting and an inflatable playground for kids to bounce on.

It is the only YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region site hosting a party.

“It allows the local community to come in and see the facility and have a good Independence Day,” Kittelson said. “It is really a family thing.”

RAVEN HILLS

At most parades, candy is tossed to the observers.

Not in this Rockrimmon neighborhood.

“Spectators throw candy to the people in the parade,” resident Kirsten Peterson said.

The parade began six years ago with a few dozen kids and dolled-up dogs. Now, about 200 people take to the streets.

It’s easy to organize, she said. Yard signs dot the main entrances to the northwest neighborhood.

“Basically, we paper the neighborhood with fliers,” she said.

Pets, bikes and wagons are festooned in patriotic colors. Boom boxes play John Philip Sousa marches.

“The retired military stand and salute,” Peterson said. “I get a lump in my throat.”

The 9 a.m. parade ends with a brunch potluck.

“It unites generations,” she said.

OLD NORTH END

About 1,400 little flags mark the Old North End’s parade route in the national historic district north of Colorado College.

Otherwise, the parade has gone on so long it practically runs itself.

“It just sort of miraculously happens,” resident Cathy Mundy said.

The parade was a tradition long before she moved into the district 20 years ago.

“It is a very low-key sort of a thing,” she said.

The 9 a.m. parade draws several hundred kids on bikes, as well as some adults banging drums or blowing horns.

“Oftentimes, we have a potbellied pig that comes,” Mundy said.

Dave Munger, neighborhood association president, calls it “a real old-fashioned kid Fourth of July parade.”

“My wife and I are relatively new residents,” Munger said. “It’s a very charming sort of thing. It’s just sort of a wonderful expression of patriotism and more importantly, neighborliness.”

FRONT-ROW SEATS

Many people will gather at pools, parks and patios, where fun is a matter of firing up a grill and grabbing a beer or a ball.

Peg Jergensen organized a community picnic and soccer game at Bear Creek Park for a group of African refugees in their 20s known as the “Lost Boys of Sudan.”

The name was given to thousands of boys forced from southern Sudanese villages by the violence and destruction of the 1980s.

About 10 live in Colorado Springs, and some attend Broadmoor Community Church with Jergensen.

“We wanted to introduce them to a typical United States Fourth of July,” she said.

Pikes Peak Care Center will have a barbecue for the 180 residents at the north-central facility.

“We’re going to do a lot of the little firework poppers you throw on the sidewalk,” director Pauline Macias said.

The Fourth of July is pretty much like any day for residents of the Union Printers Home near Memorial Park.

Nighttime is a different story.

They pull out chairs for front-row seats to the big fireworks show.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com