Old Tyme Fourth

On the lighter side of Independence Day, we went down to the "old-fashioned" Fourth of July celebration at one of Chapel Hill's historic houses. A friend of ours was playing in the community band pictured here. They did all the traditional patriotic songs (Grand Old Flag, that one about being kind to your web-footed friends, and so on). The celebration also included lemonade and ice cream from one of the local dairy farms. It was really nice, actually -- laid-back, pleasant, and not unbearably hot as long as you stayed in the shade. We spent an hour or so there, which was about the right amount of time.


We got there too late to get one of these Spam t-shirts. (Too bad, because they're kind of awesome! A bit bizarre, though, since they're way funkier than anything else at the event, which was not, shall we say, a hipster hangout.)

Later that evening we went over to some friends' place for a cookout. Nothing says Fourth of July like watermelon and hot dogs!

We met some friends of theirs who are moving down to my hometown in a month or so. They were lovely people, but it was hilarious, because the two things they were obsessed with in preparing for the move were alligators and bad neighborhoods. First off, the town doesn't have too much in the way of bad neighborhoods, and second, while there are indeed alligators, it's not as if they're roaming the streets terrorizing the citizenry. They don't really bother people much (although I suppose once every several years a jogger by the main "alligator lake" gets a leg chomped). We tried to explain this, but the friends were skeptical. ("Well, if you're worried, you can always go swimming in a pool instead of a lake." "BUT I HEAR THE ALLIGATORS GET INTO THE POOLS!") Ah well, they'll figure out for themselves soon enough.