July 4th comes early in Penngrove with the ‘Biggest Little Parade’

The tiny town of Penngrove once again got a head start on Independence Day on Sunday with a pre-Fourth of July parade that’s as much about celebrating community as country.

Coming three days before the official holiday, Penngrove’s “Biggest Little Parade in Northern California,” beat out other small town Fourth of July parades in nearby towns like Sonoma and Kenwood, something they have been proudly doing for 42 years.

Hundreds of people dressed in patriotic colors and waving tiny flags lined the parade route - a quick three-block hop along Main Street - that started near the newly restored Penngrove Market in the old 1872 Ronsheimer building and marched past Mack’s Bar, Valkyrie Tattoo and the Hello Gorgeous Salon.

“It’s just really kid-friendly. There’s not a lot of loud noises and people going over the top. It’s a family parade. You don’t have to worry about party animals,” said Ronnie Dotson, who came down from Rohnert Park with his wife, who works at a Penngrove salon, and their two daughters, ages 2 and 5.

He was gathered with a big group of friends and their spouses from the salon who had staked out a prime spot and brought their own portable gazebo to keep out the July sun.

Community pride was out in force, along with the Rancho Adobe Fire District’s finest rolling stock, flatbed trucks laden with hay bales and vintage and working tractors still dusty from the farm. Familiar faces like Rep. Mike Thompson and dignities like Petaluma’s Lt. Kate O’Hare-Palmer, an Army nurse who served in Vietnam and is the local Veteran of the Year, waved from cars festooned in patriotic regalia.

Cathi Sarver, who grew up in Penngrove and went to Penngrove Elementary like her father before her, has had a curbside seat, always in the same spot, since the parade began in the 1970s.

“It’s a tradition - ‘God Bless America’ and the ‘Red, White & Blue,’?” said the preschool teacher, whose father, Carl Copp, born in Penngrove in 1922, was grand marshal in 2001.

She figures everyone who stays in town long enough has a shot at being grand marshal at the parade. This year’s grand marshal was Lyndi Brown, a 24-year Penngrove resident and recipient of the 2016 Petaluma “Good Egg” award, given to those who help preserve and promote the city and its history.

Beth Markiewicz, who recently moved to Middletown from Sonoma County, was there with her son and daughter-in-law and possibly the youngest paradegoer - month-old grandson Damien Markiewicz, who spent his first Penngrove Parade sleeping in a blue blanket and getting passed around among family and friends.

“This is a big day for us to see people we don’t get to see anymore,” Markiewicz said.

Others echoed the idea that it’s not just a parade, but a community party and reunion.

“It’s one of the best small-town parades,” said Lori Rooney, who drove up from Novato. She said she never misses the annual event. “I know many of the people in the parade and most of the people on the sidewalk.”

The parade is put on by the Penngrove Social Firemen as a fundraiser for the Penngrove Community Park.

The nonprofit group owns and maintains the 4-acre park in the heart of town, where people gathered after the parade for chicken barbecue, oysters, hot dogs and other old-fashioned American chow.

British-born John Sutton-Smith, a 10-year Penngrove resident, watched the action from the offices of Penngrove Proud magazine, where he works with his sister and publisher Lynda Sutton-Smith.

“I’m not much of a paradegoer,” he said. “But this is a great little thing and it’s over by lunch.”