Huge, Talk Of Town July 4 Parade To Mark America’s 233rd Birthday!
Glenside/Abington, PA -- “The parade!”
It’s the talk of the town at this time every year in Glenside, PA, and neighboring communities.
To localites, former residents and out-of-area attendees, “the parade!” is the endearing and all-encompassing term given the exciting, colorful and patriotic centerpiece of the annual and expansive Independence Day Celebration that links Glenside sectors of both Abington and Cheltenham Townships.
To begin at 4 p.m. Saturday, July 4, as America marks its 233rd birthday, this year’s parade -- the 106th in Glenside history -- is among the country’s oldest continuous Independence Day marches. The 1.5 mile trek through Glenside’s business and residential districts is actually called the “Grand, Glorious, Annual Patriotic Parade” by the celebration sponsor, the not-for-profit Great Glenside Patriotic Association (GGPA).
Officials of this all-volunteer membership group have said over recent years that their morning-into-night, free admission, holiday extravaganza is “Suburban Philadelphia’s biggest and best” July 4 celebration. And they also state that Glenside’s famed parade is what one would expect to see in a big city rather than a small suburban town.
To start at Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 676, Jenkintown Rd. and Roslyn Ave. in north Glenside, the parade will follow its traditional route: east along Jenkintown; south on Easton Rd., where curblines will be aligned with 4x6’ American flags (owned by the GGPA and hoisted by local volunteer fire companies’ personnel); and then east on Waverly Rd. for two blocks to Keswick Ave., the end location.
The parade’s reviewing stand will continue being on steps leading to the main entrance of St. Luke the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Easton Rd. at Fairhill Ave. Also positioned there will be the parade’s personnel public address announcer, Dan Moyer, of Glenside.
Upon its arrival at the reviewing stand, the parade will receive its traditional blessing from St. Luke’s pastor, Monsignor Michael Flood.
Parade grand marshal is Abington Township Commissioner Michael (Mike) Gillespie (R), now in his 18th year and fourth term of representing Glenside ward 13 on the Abington Board of Commissioners. A long-time community activist, Gillespie, 70, is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran; a member of the local Marine Corps League and Glenside Kiwanis Club; on the board of directors of Montgomery County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 14; and is a past recipient of the Citizen of the Year Award presented annually by Glenside’s combined service clubs.
A 1956 Abington High School graduate, he is also an Abington Police Department retiree, having served 26 years as a patrol officer. Active for 20 years with the patriotic association, he continues serving as parade co-chairman with Ann Langdon, a former Glensider who now lives in Blue Bell, PA, and chairs the GGPA’s annual food/drink fund-raising social every February.
Gillespie and his wife, Carol, have two daughters, a son and a granddaughter and live on Roberts Ave. in Glenside.
Several new features will be in this year’s parade, including Teal Sound, “Florida’s premier touring drum and bugle corps,” a 150-member aggregation from Jacksonville, FL.
Also new will be Corporales San Simon a colorful, 150-member group based at Alexandra, VA.
Among new novelties will be “America’s largest traveling concert band organ,” a mobile unit from Allentown, PA.
Returning to the parade will be crowd-pleasing musical/marching favorites from prior years, including the precedent-setting Fralinger String Band, seven straight (2003-2009) titlists of Philadelphia’s New Year Mummers Parade. Fralingerites will appear in their Arabian Nights-themed “Your Wish is Our Command” costumes from the 2009 New Year’s Parade.
Other returnees will be another 150-member troups, the award winning Jersey Surf Drum and Bugle Corps, from Camden County, NJ; the Brian Boru Pipes and Drums; the Rajah Shrine Motorized Band, from Berks County, PA; the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes and Drums; the Caesar Rodney Brass Marching Band, of Newark, DE; Fifes and Drums of the Olde Barracks Museum at Trenton, NJ; and the Ulster Scottish Pipes Band.
Also parading will be more musical units, numerous U.S. military and veterans groups, Abington and Cheltenham Townships and Jenkintown Borough Police Departments, volunteer fire companies, emergency rescue organizations, community, church and business representations, service clubs, patriotic floats, dance companies, novelty attractions and historic vehicles.
The local celebration actually begins six hours before the 4 p.m. parade with the 10 a.m. We Love America Children’s Program at Cheltenham Township’s Harry Renninger Memorial Park, Keswick Ave. at Waverly Rd. in south Glenside. Decorated bicycle and stroller contests start festivities, followed by girls and boys field sports events at 10:30 a.m. and the serving of refreshments at 12 noon.
Scheduled for the celebration finale is an America the Beautiful Aerial Fireworks Spectacular, to begin about 9 p.m. Patriotic association officials, however, caution that the half-hour fireworks show is ‘subject to cancellation if funding needs are not met.” Response to the association’s community wide fund-raising mailing and corporate/institutional donations will determine if the fireworks are a go.
If so, they will be fired by an experienced crew from Pyrotecnico Vitale Family Fireworks, located in western Pennsylvania at New Castle. Launch site will be Abington Township’s maintenance yard on Florey Lane, east of Easton Rd.
The $15,000 display of nearly 1,000 high-level rockets is the only free-admission fireworks show in eastern Montgomery and lower Bucks counties.
Prime viewing areas will be the parking and athletic areas of Abington Senior and Junior High Schools; Copper Beach Elementary School parking facilities off Easton Rd.; sidewalks along Easton Rd.; south of Bradfield Rd.; and the Glenside Gardens neighborhood including and south of Charles St.
In a “fireworks first,” the Abington Choral Club will perform for pyro show attendees in the Abington schools’ campus area from 8:30 p.m. until the aerial display begins. Choristers will offer their “Made in America” tunes from a location outside the senior high school gym on the west side of the building.
As the celebration approaches, the patriotic association, in a mass fund-raising mailing to the community, noted “Some believe that because Abington and Cheltenham Townships provide valued logistical support to the local 4th of July celebration, these municipalities pay for the overall event. Not so! The celebration’s entire cost ($50,000) is paid for by the not-for-profit Greater Glenside Patriotic Association from tax-deductible contributions to this all-volunteer membership, 501 © (3) group.”
“Participating Patriot” contributions are accepted year round by the GGPA at P.O. Box 72, Glenside, PA 19038-0072. Paypal contributions can be made online by visiting the association web site --- www. Glensidejuly4thevent.com.
Sunday, July 5, is the celebration’s rain date, with information available at 267-446-6844 or 215-884-5712.
Story by Wm. B. Hall
EditRegion3