Vidalia has got to be one of the most patriotic places on earth.

That was my first impression of the town two and a half years ago when I moved to the Miss-Lou, and it&8217;s more or less stuck.

Drive across the bridge right now and you&8217;ll encounter the American flags lining the median. Head into the neighborhoods and the flags hang from trees and decorate flowerbeds.

Granted this is the patriotic time of year, but in four months you&8217;ll still find flags up.

After weeks on end of dry weather, Fourth festivities got rained out Tuesday. The Isle of Capri postponed the barge fireworks, and Vidalia canceled the show at the amphitheater. No organized hot dog-eating contests survived the rain, but a few sprinkles can&8217;t stop the localized patriotism in Vidalia (and I&8217;m sure some places in Natchez and Ferriday too).

My cursory drive through the streets of Vidalia in search of Fourth of July fun proved that it&8217;s OK to barbecue in the rain. And as long as your match doesn&8217;t get smothered by a raindrop, fireworks will still explode without the sun.

Families can gather on the covered porch as opposed to under an unpatriotic sky, and children never mind getting wet anyway.

The Fourth goes on.

All my life I&8217;ve favored the organized Independence Day events to a day of marathon war movies and westerns on TBS. As a kid I always wanted to go to the city&8217;s planned events in the park (they had a dunking booth). My parents would have rather avoided the 90-plus degree temperatures and stuck with the TV.

Even now, it doesn&8217;t feel like the Fourth unless I go to something. Last year another reporter and I had our holiday crushed when we stopped by Vidalia&8217;s riverfront events only to find that most events fell victim to the heat. I sulked back home and watched a movie marathon after all.

I was just as upset Tuesday when Margaret Perkins from First Natchez Radio called to tell us all the events had been canceled. (Though, I was more upset this time because it left us without the planned front page story and photo.)

But no one in Vidalia seemed to care that citywide plans were canceled. I&8217;m sure some last minute stops to the fireworks stand down the road helped provide multiple, smaller light shows. And the burgers and hotdogs probably tasted just as good a little wet.

Vidalia doesn&8217;t need organized events to be patriotic. They do it year round.

Talk to a Vidalia resident long enough and you&8217;ll soon hear stories of a family member who is serving in the military. When a native is killed at war, the town is quick to rally around the family, making them all heroes.

Maybe patriotism is just part of being a small southern town built on conservative values. Maybe the patriotism we all feel is just, for one reason or another, concentrated on the streets of Vidalia.

We could all learn a thing or two about celebrating freedom with the people you love from this town. I did.

And besides, the fireworks didn&8217;t get canceled, just postponed. A bigger crowd will probably turn out along the river Saturday anyway.

Julie Finley

is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or

julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com

.