SHELBURNE FALLS — The village reprised its annual Independence Day parade and barbecue on Monday, carrying forth its momentum to build back after the COVID-19 pandemic halted the tradition in 2020 and led to smaller festivities in 2021.
“I think we have a much better showing this year now that the pandemic is easing up,” commented parade leader Emily Eash.
The Independence Day parade lined up at 11 a.m. on Monday and kicked off at noon on Conway Street. Participants included the Shelburne Falls Military Band, veterans, bagpipers and drivers operating a variety of vehicles, such as vintage cars and tractors. Fire departments from all over the county were also called in to take part.
“I called every fire department I ever had,” recounted Steve Finck, a local firefighter, Lions Club member and the event’s lead organizer for more than two decades. “I got everyone (from as far as) Deerfield and Rowe.”
“How many of these are volunteer departments?” said Julie Page, a Franklin County EMT, volunteer firefighter and one of the event’s managers. “Do you know how hard it is to put something like this together?”
After departing from near the old Buckland Maintenance Department on Conway Street, the parade proceeded through Buckland and Shelburne, concluding with a chicken barbecue, car show and military band performance at the Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School. Sidewalks overflowed with smiling faces from residents donning the nation’s colors.
“The turnout was amazing,” Page commented after the parade.
Once the parade reached the turn onto Main Street from Bridge Street, participants came face-to-face with a crowd of demonstrators advocating for bodily autonomy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion. Rather than denounce the demonstration as obstructive to the day’s patriotism, Page emphasized the parade’s purpose as a unifying force.
“No matter what any one individual is, we are one community, and what better way to celebrate community is there than coming together for one struggle we all share?” she said, noting that the United States initially declared its independence from England following a fight for autonomy.
“I think it shows that you support the country as a whole, no matter its divisions,” Eash said of the parade. “Like a family, it has divisions.”
Finck expressed that he was happy to see locals emphasizing their freedom of speech. He said he was happy, however, that the Independence Day parade could be separate from social activism.
“This is just (about being) proud to be an American,” he said, “and not politics.”
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-772-0261, ext. 261 or jmendoza@recorder.com.