AMERICA CELEBRATES

Across our nation this weekend, America is celebrating its independence with old-fashioned picnics and fireworks and parades down the main streets of cities and rural villages--from Manhattan to the rocky shores of California’s Mendocino Coast.

Nowhere, though, is the excitement more evident than in Small-Town America, as illustrated by these photos of vintage automobiles and marching bands. The fever is contagious: It sweeps across prairies to the Deep South, and spills over the Continental Divide into Utah and Nevada and beyond to the Golden Gate. The nation marches to the beat of a special holiday.

Small-Town America. The excitement echoes like a melody from “The Music Man.” While our cities light up with fireworks displays, rural America is content to celebrate this special holiday with pie-baking contests and sack races, buggy rides and crafts fairs--simple pleasures that give roots to a land where the riches of freedom are treasured.