First Things Fourth

Feeling star-spangled? Warren’s town parade theme suggests 2008 is the time to mine the past for future insights — not a bad idea, in a presidential election year. Politics aside, flag-waving is fun this weekend. Get your fireworks fix a day early in Bristol, North Hero or on Burlington’s waterfront, at a shindig featuring trampoline acrobats. Montpelier also gets a jump on the holiday with a parade, a water carnival and sparks in the dark, followed by double street dances.
On I-Day itself, parades and community festivals take to the streets in Warren, Bristol, Williston, Cabot, Milton and Plattsburgh, N.Y. History nerds note musket-punctuated readings of the Declaration of Independence at Fort Ticonderoga and, at Woodstock’s Billings Farm, 19th-century-style debates revive the art of speaking publicly to one’s peers. Patriots who march to a different drummer can participate in a presidential tribute to “Silent Cal,” or get a glimpse of the world’s shortest parade, which traverses Stowe’s mini-metropolis of Moscow. Click the "Event Website" link above to see a full list of local fourth fests.