In Florence, Massachusetts, school bands, community orchestras, and neighborhood organizations marched or rode in open trucks along the main street in this neighborhood in Northampton.
The sidewalks were lined with spectators of all generations, including a number of military veterans. 84-year-old Charles Williams, a flight instructor during the Korean war, was mostly quiet as he watched the parade go by. His wife Shirley says he has Alzheimers, but events like this seem to invigorate him.
“He’s waving, he’s singing with the songs,” she says.
Sitting nearby, William Streeter — also 84 — says he was an army cook in Germany after World War II. Whenever a flag goes by in the parade, he stands up to salute.
“We’ll never redo the feeling we had in World War II, the patriotism and so on,” he says, “That will never happen again, but this brings it back some.”