It’s no wonder that the Warwick Neck Fourth of July parade has become a tradition. It’s too much fun to not keep going year after year.

But it’s changed. That’s not a bad thing.

 Loretta Winde who served up watermelon slices to parade participants and the spectators in the Providence Seminary parking lot, remembered the days when the parade started and ended at the home of Bill and Madeline Nixon overlooking Greenwich Bay.

“What a view, it was beautiful,” she said of the venue. She remembers the awards given out to participants for their attire, how they had gussied up their lawn tractors or assembled a chorus of kazoo players as was organized one year.   Her granddaughter, now eight years old, won the prize for being the youngest in the parade. She was not even one then.

She looked down at bite-sized watermelon pieces neatly arranged like soldiers at parade rest.

“No pits. No spitting them out,” she said recalling how kids were teased that they could start growing watermelons if they swallowed them.

In the early years of the parade there was a definite element of bravado from the Haronians, Riggs, Satmarys, Hendriques and a handful of others. They declared, although they knew it was nowhere near the truth, that this was better than Bristol. No one disagreed. Everybody who wanted to join the celebration of the nation’s independence could, which often meant there weren’t too many spectators. That was okay. That inclusiveness hasn’t changed. Politics were put aside and patriotism was on display. The same was true this July 4th.

Indeed, there were individuals and groups that stood out as they should. Pack One Warwick Neck Scouts carried the 45-star American flag from 1896 belonging to neck resident Jack Clegg. The Cub Scouts got some help from pack alums said pack leader Patti Gomm. Jack and his wife, Lillian, followed in their car. 

Mayor Frank Picozzi, Representative Joe Solomon and Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur formed their own division. The Warwick Neck Garden Club rode together and leading the parade as grand marshal was 102 year old WWII veteran Duilio “Dewey” Turilli. He was a radio operator for a fighter squadron in the battle of Imo Jima. While many of those planes didn’t return, his admiration is for the Marines who were the first to land on the island and were hit hard.

It couldn’t have been better planned for seated beside him in the John Deere Gator was Robert “Bubba” Cutler in a perfectly fitted dress Marine uniform.

“I hear you got it for the parade,” I said to Bubba. “No, I got it for my funeral,” came the reply. “I’m going to be buried in it.”

On the Fourth, Bubba was very much alive as was Dewey who waved to everybody and anybody and flashed a wide smile.

Leslie Baxter feared Dewey might not be able to serve as Grand Marshal as he had tripped over his rake while working on a yard project and scrapped his arm. The injury didn’t deter him for what Leslie believes was his first Warwick Neck parade. His family turned out for the event including his daughter, Tina who drove here from Arizona.

Last year, I rode with Bubba, who led the parade, as he did this year. On Friday I was the passenger with David Parr, the newly elected vice president of the Warwick Neck Improvement Association. He moved here from Providence to buy the house of the late Sen. William Walaska overlooking Narragansett Bay. Thankfully, David kept a respectable distance from the diesel exhaust of the patriotically decorated tractor ahead of us. Neither he, past president of the Neck Association Jonathan Knight nor Mayor Frank Picozzi had anything new to report on the Warwick Neck Lighthouse. The city and the association collaborated on an application to have it donated to the city. Then to everyone’s surprise the story popped that it would be auctioned, although no details of an auction were provided.

Perhaps the pits are a measure of how the parade has evolved. Of course, we’ve all aged and those who were around remember the early days of the parade and those who weren’t can only imagine what it was like. Evan Osorio, who is now 3 years old, may years from now remember his stroller ride of the parade route. But my guess is the post parade patriotic music that had him marching while munching watermelon will come to mind.

On the other end of life’s spectrum, Dewey remembers the carnage of the battle of Imo Jima. So much has happened since then, so much change, but apparently not his regard for the parade.

What he loved was making a tour of the neighborhood and experiencing the parade from a new vantage. Both Dewey and Evan were experiencing aspects of the parade for a first time.

That’s what makes local parades so much fun. While familiar to so many – a reconnecting and neighborhood display – they are fresh. How else would I have met David Parr, delighted in Evan’s moves with the music or even thought about the disappearance of watermelon seeds?