As we do every year, my wife and I make a pilgrimage to see my family in Indiana around the 4th of July.
We travel to the South Bend area in Indiana, home of Notre Dame University and where Pete Buttigieg was formerly mayor. (More about the town here).
It is interesting being in the outlying farming town just outside of the city on July 4th. This is truly small town America and is a smaller scale reflection of every town and city across America.
The 4th of July parade is exactly what it should be, a no frills reflection of what the community is. The town of North Liberty, where we attended the parade, has one main street which is basically a pass through state route and that is pretty much the business community. Many of the other surrounding commnities are the same layout. Each of these main streets are really not even a city block long and have maybe a dozen businesses. Every year during the parade there are the farmers tractors, some of which have been running for a century. There is also the local, county and state police as well as the fire department (volunteer) and some local businesses and clubs. I did notice that there was a lack of floats starting maybe ten years ago. I will have to look into the reason why but I suspect it is for a variety of reasons such as cost, time and lack of interest in volunteers to create it. That is a shame as floats showcase creativity (oooo, maybe this can be another blog).
While we are in this community I also learn some history from the locals as well as see how farming has changed over the last 50+ years. Current farming in most areas is now corporate. Families no longer own the farmland and only manage and work the land as dictated by corporate owners. Pretty much all the corn is not food for human consumption but is feed corn for animals. It is also pretty much all GMO
