The Fourth of July Parade

Jesse Hensel made this excellent little slide show with interviews about the Fourth of July parade in Ester.



This is an intriguing and very positive contrast to some of the comments that were posted on the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner's blog in reaction to Rebecca George's article about the parade. I thought her article and the background piece on the Ester Community Association's role in the picnic were overall very good, although the Ken Kesey reference at the beginning played right into the stereotypes associated with our village, as exemplified by the Hippie Chick character in the Malemute Saloon variety show. Funny that Ester used to be considered a redneck area, and now is considered an Evil Liberal Nest of Perversion. Sheesh.

Anyway, I've been receiving some excellent photos; I'll be posting some here and on the Republic's Facebook page as soon as I make sure it's okay with the photographers.

I, as readers of this blog may know, was in the Banana Girls Marching Ukelele Band, and had a heck of a good time, although my coordination on singing, playing, and marching suffered somewhat in actual performance as opposed to practice.