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The New Lenox Patriot 070716
The New Lenox Patriot 070716
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newlenoxpatriot.com NEWS<br />
the New Lenox Patriot | July 7, 2016 | 3<br />
Hundreds celebrate Fourth in New Lenox<br />
Tim Hadac, Freelance Reporter<br />
As the rock cover band<br />
Wildfire conducted a sound<br />
check and joked with the<br />
crowd growing on the lawn<br />
Monday, July 4, at the New<br />
Lenox Village Commons,<br />
the five-member Cruz family<br />
engaged in a friendly<br />
debate about the fireworks<br />
show coming in about 90<br />
minutes.<br />
“I like the colors; they’re<br />
beautiful, unlike anything<br />
else,” Marisol said.<br />
Her 10-year- old daughter,<br />
Giselle, agreed.<br />
“They’re like big flowers,<br />
blooming in the sky,” she<br />
said.<br />
Giselle’s father, Jose, said<br />
that while he likes the colors,<br />
the bone-shaking explosions<br />
“are what float my<br />
boat and have ever since I<br />
was a kid. Reminds me of<br />
Sox Park, from years ago,<br />
every time Frank Thomas<br />
would hit a home run.<br />
“We’d go crazy. Same<br />
here. We come here every<br />
year and cheer.”<br />
Marisol and Jose’s 3-yearold<br />
son, Angel, agreed but<br />
was more succinct.<br />
“I like the boom-booms,”<br />
he said with wide eyes.<br />
The tie-breaking vote belonged<br />
to 9-month-old Teresita,<br />
but she did not indicate<br />
a preference as she sucked<br />
her Minnie Mouse pacifier.<br />
Others were first-timers,<br />
such as New Lenox resident<br />
Colleen Lafleur and her son,<br />
Wyatt, 4, who shyly said he<br />
likes fireworks but wasn’t<br />
sure which ones were his<br />
favorites.<br />
“We did our backyard<br />
celebrating yesterday, so<br />
we figured we’d come over<br />
here for one last hurrah before<br />
we head back to work<br />
on Tuesday,” Colleen said.<br />
Some were veterans of<br />
the annual blowout, including<br />
New Lenox resident<br />
Gwen Jablonski, who<br />
wore a blue top accented<br />
by a stars-and-stripes scarf.<br />
She began attending New<br />
Lenox’s Fourth of July celebrations<br />
more than 40 years<br />
ago, she said.<br />
She sat with Sharon<br />
Schondorf, also of New<br />
Lenox, who has attended for<br />
about 30 years.<br />
“I sang here with the<br />
Lincoln-Way Area Chorale<br />
years ago, when this [event]<br />
opened up,” Jablonski said.<br />
In all, hundreds of men,<br />
women and children enjoyed<br />
New Lenox’s annual<br />
celebration of America’s<br />
independence from colonial<br />
rule.<br />
As Wildfire riled up the<br />
crowd with its high-energy<br />
version of Pat Benatar’s<br />
1980 hit “Hit Me With Your<br />
Best Shot,” several New<br />
Lenox Lions Club members<br />
roamed the crowd, prowling<br />
for generous souls to buy<br />
raffle tickets.<br />
“This event tonight is<br />
about patriotism, about the<br />
nation, about the community<br />
— and the community is<br />
what we’re all about,” said<br />
Lion Marie Wheeler, as she<br />
sold tickets at $10 each for<br />
the service organization’s<br />
60th annual sweepstakes<br />
drawing.<br />
The grand prize is $5,000,<br />
and a total of eight winners<br />
are to be drawn on July 28<br />
at the New Lenox Community<br />
Park District’s Proud<br />
American Days celebration.<br />
“And yes, this is about<br />
New Lenox, but this celebration<br />
draws people from<br />
far and wide,” Wheeler<br />
added. “Down yonder, I<br />
just met a woman here from<br />
Knoxville, Tennessee, who<br />
is visiting. So this is the<br />
face of New Lenox, but it’s<br />
also the face of America, in<br />
a way.”<br />
The club has about three<br />
dozen members and is always<br />
looking for more men<br />
and women to step forward,<br />
Wheeler said.<br />
After Wildfire burned<br />
through its 15-song set, the<br />
crowd received a pleasant<br />
jolt at 8 p.m., as pilot Tom<br />
Buck buzzed the commons<br />
The Joliet American Legion Band performs the national<br />
anthem as the colors are presented Monday, July 4, at the<br />
Village of New Lenox’s Fourth of July celebration at the<br />
Village Commons. Laurie Fanelli/22nd Century Media<br />
not once but twice in a vintage<br />
World War II Avenger,<br />
a Navy torpedo bomber that<br />
debuted in 1942 at the Battle<br />
of Midway. The flyover<br />
drew a roar from the crowd.<br />
Music lovers at the celebration<br />
then settled in to<br />
hear the more traditional<br />
sounds of the 65-piece Joliet<br />
American Legion Band,<br />
led by the baton of Tom<br />
Drake, an acclaimed band<br />
leader and music educator<br />
who joined the band as a<br />
clarinetist and has served as<br />
its conductor since John F.<br />
Kennedy was president.<br />
Founded in 1946, the band<br />
has played before seven<br />
U.S. presidents and prides<br />
itself on its disciplined musical<br />
style, in the tradition<br />
of John Philip Sousa.<br />
The biggest cheers of<br />
the evening, though, were<br />
saved for the pyrotechnics<br />
that lit up the night sky — a<br />
breathtaking combination of<br />
blooms and boom-booms,<br />
as at least one family in the<br />
crowd might have said.<br />
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