Even before the lanterns were lit for the 136th Grand Illumination the grounds of the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association were aglow with lights. Children and adults streamed into the Camp Ground in Oak Bluffs with blue, green and red glow sticks, glowing necklaces and flashing earrings.

The annual event is one of the cornerstones of an Island summer and has its roots in the time of Methodist camp meetings. The first Illumination Night took place in 1869 in honor of Governor's Day and was sponsored by the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company.

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.