The Ottawa Hills Library was represented in the 73rd annual Hollyhock Parade, amidst kids on decorated bikes; a variety of creative red, white, and blue costumes, and the "Hollyhock Parade Band." Ottawa Hills' Branch Manager, Catherine Page, rode in a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle. She waved to the smiling and clapping crowd along the route that starts at Calvin Avenue and meanders around the Ottawa Hills neighborhood. The Beetle displayed signs announcing Ottawa Hills' 50th Anniversary Party. Find out more information about the 50th Anniversary here.
After the parade, participants and spectators gathered at Hollyhock Lane to eat at the annual potluck and hear speeches -- including a speech by GRPL Director, Marcia Warner.
Check out more pictures on our Flickr site!
GRPL Director Marcia Warner is ready for the parade to start.
Volunteers, including Reference Librarian Bill Hill, prepare to pass out handouts about the 50th Anniversary Party.
GRPL Director, Marcia Warner, speaks to neighbors about the meanings of patriotism.
Here is a copy of Marcia's speech.
Since all good speaking should start with a joke so I ask my feminist sisters in the crowd to forgive me for a moment, Because I only know one library joke. A blonde walks into the library and asks the clerk for a burger and fries. The clerk replies, Ma’am this is a library. The woman says "Oh, (whisper) I’ll have a burger and fries."
On Independence Day we remember the vision and conviction of America’s founders. We remember the ideals of liberty that led 56 men and 13 colonies to gather in Philadelphia and pen a declaration of self evident truths.
They did not include equality of men of other races, they did not include women of any race.
No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts.
Americans love to talk about their traditions of freedom, and so they should. The shaping of American liberty is one of the great achievements of human society in human history. But it is not a machine that fixes itself; it is not a tree that grows without water.
We cannot assume that the struggle for independence or liberty is ended in our country. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It was the price yesterday and it is the price today.
One of the ways we insure liberty for tomorrow is fostering independence in our children.
We teach them to read
We support our libraries
And we teach them to think
As my husband's grandmother used to say, "they have two hands and a heartbeat." If we constantly do for them, down the road others will do to them.
Empower your children for our future
Teach them to do
Teach them to read
Teach them to think
If she is free in thought, expression, worship, she is indeed free.
Patriotism without thinking is both blind and ignorant.
Finally I leave you with a story, I am, after all a librarian.
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright told how a lecture he received at the age of nine helped set his philosophy of life: An uncle, a stolid no-nonsense type, had taken him for a long walk across a snow-covered field. At the far side, his uncle told him to look back at their two sets of tracks. "See, my boy," he said, "how your footprints go aimlessly back and forth from those trees, to the cattle back to the fence and then over where you were throwing sticks? But notice how MY path comes straight across, directly to my goal. You should never forget this lesson!" "And I never did," Wright said, grinning. "I determined right then not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had."
Enjoy this 4th of July and tomorrow, celebrate freedom by visiting your public library.
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