A party to make the Fathers proud

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By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star

If the Founding Fathers were 9-year-olds again and rode their bikes to Cripple Creek Park Friday morning, they could have had a lot of old-fashioned fun.

They could have tried three-legged races and potato sack races. They could have spit watermelon seeds with the best of them.

But what would the other kids think?

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Rachel Napier, working with Jane Anderson, races to the finish trying not to drop the balloon carrying on her back. The balloon race was one of a few activities included with the ceremony at Cripple Creek on Friday. (Cody Duty)

“They’d be weird,” 9-year-old Thomas Fulton said. “They’d dress weird. They wouldn’t know how to play Nintendo DS ‘Guitar Hero.’

“I bet they wouldn’t even have a Game Boy.”

Thomas and his one-minute-younger twin, Augustine, rode their bikes from their cul-de-sac a few blocks away to the park Friday for the neighborhood’s big fourth annual Fourth of July party, Celebrate America.

They played big roles in the event, speaking in serious voices behind the microphone. They were among 11 boys who’d each memorized large chunks of the whole Declaration of Independence.

When in the course of human events …

The boys recited the Declaration for proud parents, video cameras, World War II veterans, Korean vets, Iraq vets, twin baby girls in polka-dot sunglasses, sleeping dogs on owners’ laps, a Golden Retriever wearing a red-white-and-blue neckerchief, a red-headed boy who was annoyed, a blond boy in a Native American headdress, young boys in frontier clothes with fake rifles at their sides, teen girls in long dresses from 1776 with lace at their sleeves, cottonwoods, willows, bees, birds, blue balloons and blue sky.

Most people sat on lawn chairs or the grass, in the shade. They applauded each speech, poem and patriotic song.

We hold these truths to be self-evident …

Thomas, Augustine and the other Declaration of Independence boys wore black three-sided hats, the kind the Founding Fathers wore.

One good thing, Augustine said, is that if those men were boys now, they’d at least know how to bike, because bikes were invented back then.

Would you take them around the neighborhood?

No, the twins said.

Would you be embarrassed?

Yeah, they said.

The twins are the oldest of five children. Their father is State Sen. Tony Fulton, whose 29th District includes the park. They will have the hugest party at their house and lots of fireworks.

Thomas spoke confidently, like a future statesman:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers …

At first, the boys thought it’d be impossible to memorize their lines. The words were weird, too.

“Endeavor” and “brethren” and “domestic insurrections.”

But they did it, Augustine said. Piece of cake. He spoke confidently, too:

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren….

What does “domestic insurrections” mean?

While Thomas thought about this, his father, who’d been listening, spoke up.

And laughed.

“That’s what they do at our house.”

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.