I did not stick out at Livingston's Fourth of July parade in my Statue of Liberty costume, with its glittery green crown.  Because there were about sixty of us Liberty Belles, wearing matching statuesque green, marching with banners stating our favorite cause, like "peace," "love," "clean energy," "reproductive rights," and "the greater good."  Mine?  "Save the Bears," of course.

In Livingston, Montana, like a lot of small towns, the Fourth of July parade is a very big deal.  That morning, starting around 9:00 a.m., people had been carefully putting their chairs out along the sidewalks, though the parade was many hours away.  Country music blared all day long, as people gravitated toward the high school to prepare their floats.  The clan of bagpipers dressed in kilts.  The logger, with the log trucks stacked full with lodgepole pine.  The car dealership, radio on high.  A local outfitter's mule train-12 strong.  Coiffed rodeo queen candidates (of which I was one, believe it or not, years ago).

 And in classic Livingston style, everything ran late, with a thunderstorm threatening as we marched off.  The Liberty Belles walked beside a float that read "Montana Women for Peace."  Along the way, we gave packets of seeds, generously donated by the local Rosedale Garden, to kids and anybody with outstretched hands and a smile on their face.  And we walked beside our van with the killer sound system that drowned out Whiting Motors, the bagpipes, and at times, everyone around us.  Aretha Franklin's "Respect."  The Grateful Dead's "Trucking."  Cat Stevens' "Peace Train."  The old classics. 

And they weren't just old geezers left over from the sixties, dancing dexterously to avoid the horse poop in the street.  We had young kids, too (yes, they make mini-Liberty Belle costumes). 

The mastermind of this whole enterprise was Margot Kidder, actress, activist, and Livingston Force of Nature. 

(Among many things, she starred as Lois Lane in the classic film Superman with Christopher Reeves.)  For weeks, she and others in her organization Montana Women For (clean energy, peace, reproductive rights, you fill in the blank) had been slaving away at the float, packing tiny seeds and sticking little glittery bits on the crowns. 

In Livingston, it's amazing how when Margie says it's time to show up, everybody does.  And so, minutes before the parade, I jumped off a conference call about saving Alberta bears, just in time to throw on my costume.  In usual fashion, Janet, my friend and NRDC colleague, was more organized than me, with a bear hat, a can of bear spray and a message to go with it. 

(After an unprecedented grizzly mortality year, 2008, that resulted in 48 dead bears in Greater Yellowstone-many of which were avoidable-the simple act of carrying bear spray has become a life and death matter, for bears and people.)

 The Liberty Belles have been around a while, and they show no signs of slowing down.  Forty years ago, Livingston, like a lot of Montana towns, had a classic logging, ranching and mining culture.  But ever since poet Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in Montana) moved to Livingston in the sixties, that has been changing.  There has been a mounting counter-culture of writers, artists, actors, musicians, and yes, even conservationists. 

 Our float outcompeted all the others in sheer numbers, and it showed how much the community has changed.  The messages of "clean energy" and "stop the war" resonated, as we were greeted with waves of applause around each block.  (O.K., I admit it, there were also plenty of nay-sayers out there, but who's going to jeer at a Stature of Liberty?) 

As I rounded the corner on Main Street, I saw the floats streaming ahead of us, marching toward Livingston Peak.  The overflowing wagon of the Community Thrift Store.  The antique yellow bus of Yellowstone National Park (with a stuffed bear mounted on the back).  A flatbed trailer pulled by a tractor and loaded with kids with Future Farmers of America.  A train of bicycles (with one guy in a chicken suit) from our local outdoor store Timber Trails. 

Here, in one parade, was a clear demonstration of the diversity that is now Livingston.  Everyone was getting cheered at no matter what their views, giving us a hint, just maybe, that for one moment we might be able to find a way to live as neighbors, celebrating divergent values and viewpoints.

 So as hokey as some of these small town parades can be, they serve an important purpose:  to bring together the diverse and sometimes adversarial interests in one long chain of floats and music and to remind us of the meaning of Independence Day, which is the freedom to speak your mind-with a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

 Oh...and by the way, we won second prize.