In Maine, as I work to be our next conservative governor – and shock the bureaucracy with change – summertime is filled with laughter, kids swimming, adults grilling, strawberry festivals, lobster rolls, and town parades. Last week’s parade was the Lisbon “Moxie Parade,” a big one. It was a hoot!
When spring recedes, Memorial Day comes and goes, then the 4th of July, minds turn to summer fairs, festivals, and parades, warm nights, draft horses, 4-H displays, rock and country music, the smell of burgers and sausages, elephant ears, funnel cakes, corndogs, and corny jokes.
When it comes to parades, like everyone else, I think of happy folks on floats, kids waving flags, old fire engines and antique cars, scouts in uniform (as I once was), a bright overhead sun, fresh air, and – at Lisbon’s – lots of “Moxie,” the orange bottled sort and the fighting spirit.
Now, here is where the “hoot” part comes in. This year, I learned an unlikely lesson: Energy flows both ways. When you run for office, something not done before, you are part of the display, your banners, flags, words, and waves unspoken assurance that our “system” works, people step up.
There is a warm, patriotic feeling, a happy flush. I get it myself, watching parades. It comes, I think, from knowing the civic order is there, joys sharable. We are One State, one bunch of like-minded people able to put weariness aside to be festive, “One Nation Under God,” at heart indivisible.
The idea of summer parades, beyond fresh air and fun, is that good people – all of us – get together for entertainment, civic connection, lightheartedness, laughter, and some confection, leave behind the workaday world. Those in the parade throw out energy to those along the parade path.
That is how it is supposed to work. But that is not what happened this year – or not all of what happened. This year, the “Moxie Parade,” a little Maine miracle, message in a bottle.
Filling the staging area were dozens of cars, trucks, miniatures, floats, kids, and colors. Prominent were orange and white, colors of a “Moxie” bottle, a gentian-flavored, bitter root beer that is Maine’s official drink, dating to 1884.
With excitement high, the parade path was lined with eager families in foldout chairs and standing, we were set to begin – when the heavens opened. From that moment, it poured for two hours.
Rain soaked everyone, including hundreds and hundreds on the parade path, all of whom could easily have folded up their chairs, gotten in their cars, returned to their warm, dry homes, and forgotten the whole thing, called it a washout.
They did not. That is the part that stunned me. Not only did all the parade organizers, floats, scouts, kids, antique and open-top cars stay, they reveled in the summer rain, dubbed it liquid sunshine, and showed the kind of “take-er-as-she-comes” moxie for which all Maine is famous.
This was the most fun-with-abandon, throw-your-head-back-and-laugh parade I have ever been part of or watched, an unabated outpouring of civic love for who we are, celebration without hesitation.
For me, the joy was double. Watching hundreds of kids, maybe a thousand people overall, cheer and laugh, sit and stand, revel and defy the skies was a tonic for what ails you, love of the moment.
In those two hours, rain was skunked, and we swam in the Moxie Parade. My privilege was being able to jump down, walk along, and hand out 300 American flags to smiling kids, who grinned when I asked them if they were having fun, and waved their flags in the rain.
Their attitude of gratitude was refreshing. Standing in the rain with their not-to-be-chased-away parents and grandparents, these kids learned that “staying the course” is what we do. If the parade was supposed to lift those who lined its path, they actually did that for us – those in the parade.
When a town or State steps up in the rain, stand up in a downdraft, not be shooed away or ridden off the play, not to fold their chairs but stand their ground, smiling to boot, it is powerful stuff.
Maine is that way, like the old adage, “Life is not about fearing the storm, but learning to dance in the rain.” That is where Maine is now, in a time of choosing: Fear the storm, or embrace it, dance in the rain, turn into the wind, lean into the challenge, be glad for the chance to fight and make it right.
This year’s Moxie Parade was a hoot – and a blessing. It taught me, all over again, the spirit of who we are, a people with the spirit to carry on, a love of life despite strife, folks with a lot of moxie!
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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