We'd love to have you
The purpose of putting together this quarterly newsletter in the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin and sending it out to all of you is to keep you connected to your hometown. We want to let you know what is going on in Peabody. We want to encourage you to come back for a visit, a reunion, or a community celebration.
The upcoming Fourth of July celebration is one of those community events for which you should return. There are new additions, but the basic premise hasn't changed much. We celebrate the birth of our nation and the freedom paid for by the blood of our patriots from Valley Forge to Baghdad. There still are picnics, family gatherings, a parade, flags flying all over town, and the best fireworks show you can imagine. Some things never change!
The fireworks display is more sophisticated, but it still is a homegrown exhibition. One of the suppliers told the committee some years back that what they do is a forgotten talent
Some months back I wrote in this column about a young man (or maybe an old man) who bicycled to Kansas from Fort Collins, Colo., last year at the end of June and ended up in Peabody for the Fourth of July. He spent the day and pitched his tent in the park overnight. His story and his impressions of our "old-fashioned Fourth celebration" can be found on his web site at http://www.mvermeulen.com/wichita/. You should check this out and see what he has to say.
We will do it all again for the 83rd time in a couple of weeks. Come back home and join us. This unique part of your past still is a unique part of Peabody's present. We still do it up right and no one around does it better. We'd love to share it with you again.
— SUSAN MARSHALL
