June 28
There’s no place like New Mexico to celebrate
the Fourth of July.
Some may find that view
a bit ironic, since a large contingent of America’s
population still fails to recognize that we are one of the 50 United States,
with a history of freedom fighters and freedom-loving tribes that predates the
east coast revolutionary bunch by a few centuries.
But apparently our love
of freedom and our welcoming and inclusive attitude toward new cultures is no
secret in the universe.
I like to think those
now-legendary, if still controversial, ETs had decided the Land of Enchantment
was the best place to study Earth’s diverse cultures and quaint fiestas when
they headed toward Roswell back in July of 1947. Whatever your
views on the fabled incident (and for decades, I’ve been hearing
second-and-third-hand testimonials from allegedly reliable sources that it
definitely was NOT a weather balloon that crashed there), I can personally
attest that the annual Roswell UFO Fest should be on every discerning
Earthling’s bucket list. My fave attractions are the UFO Mart merchandise and
the pet and human alien costume contests.
And I personally think
Southern New Mexico has the corner on the America’s best Independence Day
fiestas, many within a fairly close distance. With some creative planning and a
few day trips, you could conceivably enjoy an imaginative assortment of
fireworks displays and exotic and downhome fiesta experiences with the confines
of a holiday weekend.
Where else could you
enjoy the rockets’ red glare exploding above a fleet of historic rockets?
Consider spending the Fourth at the Alamogordo Annual Fireworks Extravaganza at
the New Mexico Museum of Space History.
If you enjoy watching
fireworks reflections over large bodies of water in high desert country, you
have a couple of good choices.
Check out one of the
first fireworks displays this year, the annual Star Spangled Fireworks
Celebration Thursday at Inn of the Mountain
Gods Resort and Casino near Ruidoso. Or head for Elephant Butte
Lake State Park on Saturday (or July 5th if they’re rained out, which never
seems to happen) and watch them launch fireworks from Rattlesnake Island.
Why not enjoy both waterside fireworks fiestas?
Personally, I’ve long wanted
to try the suggestion of Olin Calk, creator of our giant roadrunner, and head
up its new perch off I-10 overlooking the city and get a big bird’s eye view of
official and renegade firework displays all around the Mesilla Valley.
Other musts on my Independence
Day “To Do Someday Soon” list include visits to regional celebrations that bill
themselves as “old-fashioned,” like cool Cloudcroft’s downhome parade and
melodrama performances, and the border-hopping parade in the Leap Year Capital
of the World, which marches over the border from Anthony, N.M., to Anthony
Texas.
You get a free hotdog
if you’re one of the first to show up dressed in red, white and blue at
Deming’s old-fangled fiesta.
And first on my
“old-fashioned” wish list this year is Silver City’s
celebration, which starts out with a Kiwanis Cowboy Breakfast. This year it’ll
be pancakes, which can be quite exciting, “depending on what you do with the
syrup,” I was informed by Scott Terry, president and CEO of the Silver
City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce. The fun also includes fireworks, of
course, a festival in Gough Park, and games and an ice cream social at the Silver City
Museum.
But the highlight for
many, I suspect, will be Silver’s old-fashioned parade, known for its horses.
And I just got a media release informing us that this year, the parade will
include bicyclists distributing free organic fruit to the crowds.
Only in Silver City.
And only in New Mexico.
I’ll say a prayer for
all those who crave peace and freedom, for whom bombs bursting in air too often
can be an everyday ordeal or threat, instead of a patriotic anthem. In our own
country, I’ll continue to hope and pray that any and all of us have the freedom
to gather in a church, a school, a theater or a park, in any American community,
without the threat of hate crimes and violent armed attacks.
And while we’re
celebrating, may we have the wisdom and grace to remember that until we all
have basic human freedoms, none of us is truly free.
S.
Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-com, @derricksonmoore on
Twitter and Tout, or call 575-541-5450.
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