The fog rolled out and summer rolled in late last week. The relentless chill of spring has finally shifted. Winds are blowing mostly out of the south-southwest now, and the air is warmer, drier. The pollen has eased, leaving time to wash the windows one last time before throwing them open to the oncoming heat and dust of July and August. Ocean water is finally warm enough for swimming — not officially warm but warm enough. Spring wildflowers have been replaced in rapid succession by their early summer counterparts: yarrow, wild carrot and bee balm, marsh mallow and cow parsnip. Shorefronts are carpeted in rosa rugosa and beach peas.

The squid have come and gone. Bass and bluefish have been running for weeks. In the outer Vineyard Haven Harbor, Holmes Hole sailors tack about, a friendly and ecumenical lot with weekly races open to sailors of every stripe. Far offshore, at day’s end fluke fishermen form silhouettes against the horizon, netting their catch before heading back to port for the night.

The Fourth of July is Tuesday. All week long the Island has been filling up with people, and preparations are underway for the national holiday.

There will be a parade of course, by long tradition in Edgartown, stepping off promptly at five o’clock and winding its way around the streets of downtown. More than once it’s been called the best little parade in America and with good reason: homemade floats, home-grown bands, veterans of foreign wars, fire trucks and brightly decorated vintage cars will all be in the mix. Candy will be thrown. Fire trucks will sound their sirens. Flags will wave. Children will squeal. And later in the evening when dusk falls, fireworks will explode over the Edgartown harbor, celebrating the two hundred and forty first birthday of the United States of America.

Every year on the Vineyard the Fourth of July comes all in a rush — children are out of school, summer friends have arrived, suddenly the social calendar is over-filled. Visitors are elated to kick back and leave their mainland ways behind, if only for awhile. Islanders are burning the candle at both ends and struggle to balance work and life. Thank goodness the sun doesn’t set until after eight o’clock these days — every single hour of daylight is needed. But then a flaming sunset fills the evening sky and the senses, reminding us all why the Island is a place apart.

The traditions and simple pleasures of the holiday weekend stand in contrast to our more complicated feelings about patriotism and the state of our union as the nation prepares to celebrate its revolutionary beginnings once again.

Rereading the Declaration of Independence once again, we are struck by the optimism of our founding fathers, who believed that the antidote to despotism was a country ruled with the consent of the governed. And on this Independence Day, we hope and pray that the institutions they so carefully imagined to serve as checks on absolute power will endure for centuries to come.

Happy Fourth of July to all the Gazette readers near and far. Have a safe holiday, and please remember not to drink and drive.