In the video above Jeff Moredock recites his poem, “The 4th of July Parade” while sitting on the porch of the Essex Inn on the Adirondack Coast—a prime spot to watch the parade as it finishes its route on Main Street. The poem is dated August 2011, and it is included in Jeff’s poetry anthology, Poems from Essex & Elsewhere.

The Poem

The 4th of July Parade

It comes to life
In the shadow of St. Phillip.
Wayne Baily, a real trooper,
Calms the restless crowd
With a litany of, “Soon”,
“Any minute now”, and
“Almost here”, then
A salvo of comments
About passers-by who
Catch his eye… and then… when
The crowd has worked itself
Into what passes for a frenzy
In Essex, New York,
It rumbles into view!
Ignoring the blinking red light,
It fills the street.
Convertibles piled high with
Politicians,
Floats awash in small children,
A small armada of ancient tractors
Carry a small army of ancient farmers,
Candy flies through the air,
Ignoble savages from Reber in red face
(And in need of dentures)
Run from side to side,
Frighten small children,
Try to grope large women.
A fire truck rolls past.
More candy flies through the air;
Bag pipes and drums march by.
Cats scream to get out of their bags;
Chests resonate.
A unicyclist wobbles along
Juggling cucumbers.
A vintage car glides by,
Vintage owner looking smug.
Another fire truck
Deafens ears with a blast.
The sheriff passes, riding high
In the back seat,
(Not his usual place).
A hazmat truck slides by, and
Suddenly, we feel less safe.
Yet another fire truck.
More candy flies by.
Water cannons dampen our
Enthusiasm, but we recover quickly
And… when the excitement
Becomes almost unbearable,
It all ends.

Many want it to come again
And it did one lean year
When it doubled back
For a second run.
But not this year.
Church ladies still hawk
Strawberry shortcake.
Fire Department volunteers
Push hot dogs.
One Essex citizen sells
Helium-filled balloons
for a good cause,
but most escape their
Owners and head
Out of town.
Children have bulging cheeks and
Bags of airborne candy.
A man from Willsboro claims,
To anyone who will listen,
That he was struck in the eye
By a wayward Tootsie Roll.
He gets smiles but no sympathy.
Trooper Baily thanks a few dozen people
And we all head home.
Grateful that our nation
Has had another birthday.

— McClain Jeffrey Moredock

The Author

McClain Jeffrey Moredock has worked as a farmhand, a lifeguard, a surveyor, a minister, a chaplain, a teacher, a coach, a head of school, and a chief operating officer. And, like many of his contemporaries, he retired at 65 and immediately began consulting. Five years later, weary of air travel and motel beds, he retired for good.

Jeff credits “whatever writing ability I have” to an unmedicated case of ADD and an inability to stop free-associating. In addition to Poems from Essex & Elsewhere, he has also published a collection of short stories entitled, Nine Holes, Nine Lives: The Front Nine.

Jeff has also published other works on the Essex community blog, which you can find in his author archives.

The Book

Poems from Essex & Elsewhere collects four decades of Jeff Moredock’s poetry. The first twelve poems in the book present playful portraits of life in the small village of Essex in upstate New York, and the rest — twenty five poems and three song lyrics — chart the ironies and poignancies of another dozen places the author has lived. The book was published by Essex Editions on December 2, 2016.

Copies of Poems from Essex & Elsewhere are available for purchase through Essex Editions and Amazon.

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