60 years ago ; we had moved from New England to Rockford, Illinois; i had gotten my first encounter with tornadoes; we were doing duck and cover drills and crouching in the hallway during tornadoes; then playing 4square with a red rubber ball on a chalked court on the blacktop area of the playground. I discovered baskin robin on my bike with their 27 flavors, by July 4th that year I had tried 15 of them; we spent the week before the fourth of July decorating our bicycles, wagons, strollers and carts with all manner of red white and blue decorations, playing cards clipped with clothspins so they would click as the spokes went by; streamers on the handle bars and crape paper streamers woven in the spokes. The morning of the 4th , every kid in the neighborhood joined the parade, maybe a dad in a convertible MG or VW bug led the way. My parents were the generation that grew up in the depression and came of age during WWII. We were all Americans. Much simpler times