Finding meaning in July 4

Fireworks lit the sky over Santa Rosa as hundreds of families huddled on blankets and lawn chairs Saturday night at the Sonoma County fairgrounds. In the Sonoma Valley, a traditional Fourth of July parade brought multiple generations of patriots together.

They came to witness explosions in the sky, to see their neighbors proudly dressed in military uniforms, to cheer the color guard and hear the brass bands. But underlying the festivities were inescapable anxieties about lost jobs, bankruptcies, skyrocketing health care costs and war — all challenges the country struggles with on its 233rd birthday.

At the Sonoma Plaza, the annual July Fourth parade was short on length, about three blocks, and long on fervor for the causes articulated six score and many years ago.

“Well, the Fourth of July is all about the freedom to say what we want about what we think are the big issues that we face, isn’t it?” asked Rosemary Dexter, a Sonoma resident who watched the procession from the comfort of a camp chair with extended leg rests. “If I was in Iran or in North Korea or in Russia, I couldn’t shoot off my mouth without getting shot, right?”

For Mike Dunevent, president of the Sonoma parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West, the major issue is a job because he doesn’t have one at the moment.

“I think it is the economy, for sure,” said Dunevent, a Sonoma resident who worked as an electrician until he was laid off in December. “I think getting Americans back to work so the money can start flowing again is our big issue.”

But Dolores Jaquez of Sonoma said problems in the United States go deeper than that. She said the time is ripe to fix health care along with what else ails the American economy.

“I think the economy is attached to health care in that so many people don’t have it that giving them jobs is not going to be enough,” Jaquez said as she waited for her garden club’s float to pass in the Sonoma parade.

“I have sons in their 40s that have health care, but I don’t see what the rest of America does about getting it unless the government is going to fix the basic problem that people can’t get it and can’t afford it.”

Jaquez said she is most troubled that a friend of hers can’t afford a health plan premium, but needs health care so much that he finds it less expensive to travel to Mexico to get the care he needs.

“Health care doesn’t make sense to anybody who needs it,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

Others, like Carolyn Watkins, a Penngrove resident who came with her family to view the Sonoma parade, said the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan were “sucking too much money out of the American economy.” She said it was high time the administration of President Barack Obama admits that “the use of blunt force over there is only creating trauma in this country.”

“Those are wars that never should have been waged, especially not when we need the troops here, the money here and the energy here,” Watkins said. “I’d say that the government needs to quit wasting effort where it is not going to pay off, that’s the main issue we face.”

Later in the day, families flocked to the Sonoma County fairgrounds in Santa Rosa for the Red, White and Boom event. Many said they were attracted by the $5 entry fee.

“It’s a good deal for $5,” said Martin Peters, a truck driver from Grass Valley who was visiting his daughter, Amber, in Santa Rosa for the weekend.

Earlier in the day, the father and daughter were in Sonoma Valley for the Kenwood Footrace, where Amber ran the 10K.

Peters, who sat with his daughter eating barbecue beef sandwiches under the shade of a tree at the fairgrounds, said the wave of frugality that is now part of the American psyche suits him fine.

“I keep things pretty simple to begin with,” he said. “And an event like this is pretty economical.”

McCabe Huntley, an 11-year-old student at Matanzas Elementary School in Santa Rosa, said his family couldn’t justify the cost of a “jumbo set” of fireworks this year, so they decided to attend the event. Before the sun went down, McCabe and his 9-year-old sister, Grace, were both big winners at a watermelon-eating contest hosted by the local 20-30 Club, a charity for underprivileged kids.

“You shove your mouth and drag your teeth back,” said McCabe, revealing the secrets of his success.

“I think this is more fun,” said McCabe’s mother, Katherine Kingsley of Santa Rosa. “You’re involved with the community. Otherwise we’d be off with our big box of fireworks somewhere outside the city limits.”

Kingsley, who is in final year at Empire College School of Law, works for a local attorney who handles in bankruptcies.

“I get a really clear picture of the depth of desperateness,” she said. “People just want an ear. They want someone to listen to them. They want what’s here. They want exactly what you’re finding right now — to connect to other people.”

You can reach Staff Writers Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com and Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.