This year’s parade begins at 5 p.m. on July 4. Marchers old and new, along with their floats, will line up in the Edgartown School parking lot earlier on Thursday, and when the bell tower strikes five, they will all proceed down a well-worn path.

The Edgartown Fourth of July parade roared back Monday after a two-year hiatus, with Island institutions turning out in the historic Vineyard tradition.

The Edgartown Fourth of July parade and fireworks show are back after a two-year pause. The select board unanimously approved the annual rite of summer at its meeting Monday.

At precisely 5 p.m., World War II veterans Herb Foster, 92, and Bob Falkenberg, 93, set out on a Fourth of July procession through the streets of downtown Edgartown.

Even though the sun took the Fourth of July off, people
across the Island found plenty of ways to celebrate Independence
Day.

The sharp breezes and daunting sky kept folks off the beach.
A survey of Norton Point Beach at midday showed only a handful
of people, most of whom traded sunblock for sweaters. In fact,
more state police than vacationers braved that territory.

The weather and slow morning nudged people toward their
favorite restaurants for a leisurely breakfast.

Almost 10 months after Sept. 11, patriotism will bloom fully on the Vineyard this Thursday as Edgartown invites all Islanders and visitors to its annual Fourth of July parade and fireworks at nightfall.

Parade grand marshal and Edgartown selectman Fred B. Morgan Jr. said the September terrorist attacks have brought out this year "more interest, more participation and more patriotism."

Molly Headly, age six, spun in circles waving her American flag while the Colonial Navy band marched by on Main street. The red, white and blue pompoms on her headband jumped back and forth as the little girl danced to her own rhythm. She didn't care much for the candy being thrown from the cars and floats as they passed by - she wanted more music.

"Will they play more?" she asked her mother, Sarah Headly, after the band had passed by. Molly was just one of hundreds of children and adults lining the streets of Edgartown during the annual Fourth of July parade yesterday afternoon.

A family walks along Memorial Wharf eating ice cream, the children wearing Martha's Vineyard sweatshirts, one red, one white and two blue. A stranger stops to help an elderly woman attempting to hang the stars and stripes from her flagpole. Down the street a man, surrounded by three children drawing vivid landscapes in sidewalk chalk, cleans the grime from his grill.

The Fourth of July is almost here and in every storefront, hanging flower basket and living room window Independence Day is visible.