Today was the 4th. For something a bit different I decided to spend the afternoon at the "Freedom Fest" at Fort Lewis, an Army base about 70 minutes south of here.
Part of my motivation was that KTTH, one of Seattle's two far right conservative radio-talk stations, announced that they were sonsoring the Fest. Sponsor? Far right? On a US Gov. Army Base? This sounded bizar. I figured I would be immersed in great opportunities for outrage.
Here a cross, there a cross.
Candidate, candidate, gay bashing,
Cigar smoking preachers,
Flags in everything but the burgers ....
None of that. What we saw was a nice, lower middle class, child centric street fair.
Lots of nice folks ... often in the form of nascent families .. Poppa tall and crew cut, two toddlers plus one in the oven. Kids rides run by clean cut soldier boys and gals ... who also ran the busses to the parking lots.
I really liked the non-racism. The Army must be a real meting pot. Every race based in our species seemed to be represented, even the poppas and mommas seemed selected to show of diversity. What a contrast with the usual Seattle street fairs where, somehow, Seattle's fable racelessness holds forth as lilly whilte, pudding yellow, or sable 'n chocolate depending on the neighborhood.
The major commercial endeavour seemd to be credit unions, one in particular touting free 3D glasses for watching the fire works ... to be shown after we left. Then there was loudspeaker, talkng about an opccasional lost and found item and about the raffle. Some soldier's welfare fund was sponsoring the event, the Voice was begging folks to buy raffle tickets ... tickets good for a drill press! or an airplane ticket! 50 cents! I woulda bought one or some, but I never could find their booth.
The Truth ... that is the motto of the rightist talk station, KTTH, but truth be told, their booth was largely empty and never seemed to attract much attention. Seemed like a good opportunity for the liberal bloggers to show up!
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