Today was the Belton Texas 4th of July Parade, one they’ve held for almost 100 years. 

Last time I watched it (hey, it’s hot here in July) was when my youngest was on a float, waving at me).

Wanted to give you a little taste of small town Texas on the 4th.  Without burnin AoS or IB bandwidth.

All my best to you and yours this Independence Day.

The Bell County courthouse, and waiting parade fans.

Leadoff Parade man, Sheriff Dan Smith.

Only a pimp in a New Orleans whorehouse would have pearl handled grips.

You always know when you’re downtown near the courthouse.

I did not know we had a Carnagie Museum

I don’t know.  Girls on horseys.

You should have heard the standing O.

Manners.  People kept the sidewalks clear.

Couple of old cowboys, who have seen more of these parades than I have

The band.  This is My Country.  I would have done Stars and Stripes, but hell, it’s hot out here.

The east side of the Bell County Courthouse

Memorial to Company I, 143rd, 36thID

A close up, for you fans of Ernie Pyle’s work..

Henry Waskow was a Corporal, before he became a Captain, and then he was lost to us.

Floats is floats.  Also that car is hot.

Shriners.  George Carlin was so wrong about them.

Heh.  My dad used to do this, in 1967, tie up all our neighborhood kids wagons to the riding lawn mower and take us around the block.

Staying cool.

This was my favorite float

Marines.  OOORAH  (came up from the crowd)

Water safety, from Unkie Sam and George.

Sammy… I played a wedding gig with him 2 years ago, he’s a pretty awesome drummer.

Kids

I didn’t even know we had them here

A very happy Independence Day, to y’all.

Most of you know a couple of months ago, ace extended an invitation to me to co-blog at AceofSpadesHQ, which took me all of about 2 seconds to accept.  Since then I’ve struggled to keep up with 3 blogs, (most of you know I also post at Splitters Innocent Bystanders).

What to do?  I’ve felt badly, because I really haven’t been doing my best here, heck, if you’re gonna do your best, and you can post it on a blog that gets 15,000 hits a day, you tend to save it up and put it there.

For the more personal stuff, IB works just fine for me.  They’re a nice buncha morons, and they put up with me.  You know, that annoying kid brother who you love for some reason but you’d really like mom to make him go away when you invite the girlfriends over for a pajama party. 

But I feel like a slacker here, for the few of you who are kind enough to drop by and see if I’ve done anything.  And if I have, it’s not really my best effort.  That’s lame of me, and unkind to you.

I like this thing, and I learned a lot from it, but I’m gonna let it go dark for a while.  Doesn’t mean I won’t come back to it, ace might sober up one day and realize what a horrible mistake it all was.  Until then, thank you so much for reading and commenting, and the ego boost/encouragement.  That was darn nice of you all, and I appreciate it more than I know how to say.

Pope out.

We don’t have time for the sentences!

I’ve got my eye on that ohsosweet dusky babe on the left.

Question:  Have you ever worn out a stapler?  I ain’t talking about those plastic crap ones you had in school, I’m talkin about one of these streamlined lovelies.

It’s staggering that they do not see this for what it is.

That’s not so bad, really.  Not worth pulling the trigger on outing her.  So I won’t.  If she persists it’s just more evidence of her weird RWS obsession, and that shit is legendary.

Frankly she’s paying more attention to this old blog of mine than I am.

Thanks crazy obsessive stalker goof!

That’s nice I guess.  It’s been done before.

The AP article says “asteroid belt”, but it’s really just an asteroid.  I suppose that’s nitpicky of me to point it out.  Some days you feel like picking nits.

Because we’d all get a pass on that one if we were doing something really important.

J-Mac, honestly, I don’t care if you pander.  Knock yourself out.

Just shut up about it when the others do too, ok?  Have that much class, pleasesirthankyouverymuch.

5 Ninja moves.