The holiday spirit hits Middle Georgia
The July 4th mood started early this year — concerts the previous week-end, plans for a four day holiday with the 4th falling on a Tuesday and people on the streets acting friendly like it’s Friday all week!
Many area houses of worship incorporated the annual celebration of Independence Day into their regular services. Nadine Cheek, music director and choir master and the Reverend Bryan Hinson of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church planned the musical program on Sunday, July 2, to acknowledge the near quarter century celebration of this country’s independence.
The patriotic hymns we have heard since grammar school, among them “God of Our Fathers” and “America the Beautiful,” resonate with listeners when all of the verses are sung by St. Paul’s powerful choir voices. The latter hymn, written originally as a poem by Katherine Lee Bates, was set to the music of another choirmaster, Samuel A. Ward, of Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, in 1910.
The common thread among these anthems is the timeless relevance of the words, especially for a day this country honors its heroes for securing freedom from tyranny and recognizes its fallibility and its vulnerabilities. Bates’ second verse includes these lines:
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control
Thy liberty in law
Despite ordinances limiting the time and place for their use, the fireworks started on Friday night, June 30, in neighborhoods all over town, including on the crest of Coleman Hill and to the edge of the county in north Macon.
IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT
Kicking off several days of revelry, Keith Williams’ combo played at 20s Pub and Grill on Friday, June 30 with his usual guest list of performers that are encouraged to join in the fun. Carl Lane, known well as a cardiovascular surgeon and as a faculty member at Mercer Medical School, is also a mean guitar player. It did not take long for Lane to get on stage and share some rock ‘n’ roll licks with Williams and his band to the delight of the pub’s patrons. For spotters looking for Williams and Lane, word on the street is they can be found on Tuesdays at Parish on Cherry Street or anywhere good music has an appreciative audience.
FOR THE PINT SIZED SET
What better time to hang out with your friends, throw some pizzas and do a little dancing than a July 4 week-end. On Saturday, July1, Walden Weatherford had a belated celebration for his third birthday with a few of his closest friends and their parents right in the middle of the Intown neighborhood. As flour flew and little feet danced and pranced, Pete the Cat, the protagonist from “I Love My White Shoes,” stood in the midst of this childish hilarity, towering over his charges, watching his shoes turn various colors more often seen on a pizza.
LOCAL ARTIST LAUNCHES NEW WEB SITE
Timothy Hedden, a folk artist that has delighted gallery goers from New York to Savannah, with his “trash to treasures” collages, also in the galleries at the Museum of Arts and Sciences and at the Tubman Museum in Macon, launched his official web site, www.timothyheddenart.com, on July 1. It will feature his Angels of Virtue series for which, according to his announcement, the images also are available for screen savers and wallpaper. Hedden’s creativity with the scraps he collects is combined with his fertile imagination to produce intricately designed pieces of art work or to build a miniature village. With the time he has spent recently in Savannah, Hedden is dividing his career between Macon and the coast.
This story was originally published July 4, 2017 at 11:40 AM with the headline "The holiday spirit hits Middle Georgia."