My adult child and I met up and walked down to Center City, intending to go to the Independence Day parade. I like parades. They fill some need in me for costumes, unison chants, and lots of spectators. I like watching massed groups of people who are sharing their group identity with everyone else in a friendly and inspiring way. It’s a sort of agreement to be happy together and to show off.

Part way there, my kid and I decided not to go to the parade, because our outing was just an excuse for a nice meander, and because my kid doesn’t like crowds that much. Instead, we sat in the shade and read our books. We both always have a book with us.

We did see some things that could have been parades if they had met all the requirements.

Men were wandering toward the Market Street entrance to City Hall, wearing T shirts that said “Crefisa.” Some of the men had little boys with them, and the boys were also wearing Crefisa T-shirts. The crowd swelled, and someone started waving a Brazilian flag. Then the crowd, now corralled behind ropes and stanchions, began singing a stadium anthem. We looked it up, and Crefisa sponsors the Brazilian team Palmeiras. The World Cup game wasn’t until late that night, and wouldn’t be anywhere near City Hall. Nobody in the plaza was paying much attention to them. There was plenty of music, costumes, and chanting, and a lot of participants, but it was not a parade because there was no marching and because nobody besides us seemed to be watching.

When we got up and started walking toward home, a small group of maybe 50 people passed us and headed down Benjamin Franklin Parkway toward the Art Museum, 2 miles away. The protesters were wearing keffiyehs and chanting the usual slogans, but despite the costumes it was hard to tell from the (large, careful) signs what exactly it was they were protesting. They did have a police escort–slow-moving cars at the beginning and end of the group–and they were indeed marching in costume, so it could have been a parade if it had had any spectators, but the Parkway was nearly empty. Besides, a protest isn’t the same as a parade, is it? I don’t know.

Further down the Parkway, a big collection of people was sitting around at the corner of 20th. They were holding signs too, and shouting through bullhorns. There is a big strike going on in Philadelphia that includes the trash collectors but also library workers among others, and the Central Library is at 20th. No marching. In fact, a lot of the picketers had folding chairs. There were no costumes, either, and no spectators. The protesters were dressed comfortably, and they looked like they were settling in for a very long day. Definitely not a parade, even if it was friendly.

A concert was scheduled for the evening in front of City Hall, and there were rows and rows of chairs set out on the Parkway, but both headliners cancelled because they wouldn’t break the strike so the chairs were mostly empty, even though security wouldn’t let anyone without a free ticket sit in them. Fireworks were scheduled for 9:30pm, but they started earlier than that before the spectators were completely assembled, because the concert had been so short. I live near the museum, and streams of people were still heading down my street when the fireworks started. No music. No crowd. No chanting. No costumes. No spectators. Not a parade.