Here’s How Darien Rolls on the Fourth of July

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Parade Push-n-Pull Darien CT 2015
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Hundreds of kids with their parents, friends and relatives pedaled, pulled, pushed, perambulated or otherwise pressed forward at Darien’s 11th annual Push-n-Pull Parade on Saturday morning, taking some small steps in patriotism.

Perhaps 400 kids and adults were decked out in all sorts of red, white and blue clothes, hats and decorations. Their vehicles — bicycles, scooters and wagons (the rules are that nothing is motorized except the fire trucks) — sported bunting and ribbons, flags and any other frill that could be found to celebrate the day.

Darien’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6933, which this year took over the organizing of the event after its 2005 founder, the YWCA of Darien/Norwalk bowed out, marched at the head of the parade. Fire trucks rolled before and after the hundreds of marchers.

At the Goodwives Shopping Center parking lot, where the marchers assembled, patriotic and fun songs were performed by Music for Children.

The parade pulled out of Goodwives at 10:37 a.m. onto Old Kings Highway North, rolled past the United Congregational Church, then turned onto the Post Road and headed downtown.

Just before the railroad bridge downtown, the parade turned right onto West Avenue and into Tilley Pond Park, where bikes were parked, food tents and trucks were available and face painting was free. A band played for kids, and if the day wasn’t quite sunny, it might as well have been.

Among the decorated bicycles and wagons there were a few vehicles that stood out (you can see the pictures in the attached photo gallery).

Vera Monan, age 3 1/2, became fascinated with space shuttles on a trip to the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, so her father, Peter, made her a space shuttle that fits around her waist. She used it for trick-or-treating on Halloween (there’s even a compartment for candy in the front).

Monan said he made it by scaling up instructions he found online for a model for a small paper version.

Elias McCoy, 2 1/2, rode the parade in a wooden model of a World War I biplane made for him by Tammy Hawkins, a friend of his family who has a knack for making that kind of thing.

Two boys, Oliver, age 4, and Jasper, age 6, rolled through town in a wagon transformed into a cardboard tank by their father, Rob. He finished off the camouflaged vehicle just that morning, he said.

“He got the idea from the Internet,” said his wife, Jennifer.

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2 thoughts on “Here’s How Darien Rolls on the Fourth of July

  1. Pingback: Independence Wasn’t Free for Darien | Darienite

  2. Pingback: Get Your Kids Ready: Darien/Norwalk Push-n-Pull Parade Continues July 4 Tradition | Darienite

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