By Mike Pound

Globe columnist

mpound@joplinglobe.com

The bike parade doesn’t take as long as it used to.

Well, that’s not true. The parade itself probably takes as long as it always did, it’s just that the part of the parade that Emma and her friends ride in doesn’t take as long.

When my wife and Lana, who lives across the street, first came up with the idea of a neighborhood Fourth of July bike parade in 2002, Emma was 4 and Katie, Lana’s daughter, was 5. That first year the parade seemed like it lasted roughly a week. That’s because most of the kids in the parade were not — shall we say — bike savvy. Most kids in the parade that first year needed someone to walk/run with them to make sure that:

A) They didn’t fall off their bike.

2) They didn’t run into someone else.

And III) They didn’t go inside someone’s house because they “had to go.”

That first parade Emma was still using training wheels, so her progress was slow. Barack Obama could have changed his stance on Iraq four times in the time it took Emma to finish that first parade. By the time the second parade rolled around (ha), Emma was operating her bike sans training wheels. Not well, mind you, but she was doing it.

I was tabbed to tag along with Emma to make sure she managed to navigate the three or four blocks up our street and back without incident.

I wasn’t alone. All the dads, it seemed, were on kid patrol, so the parade didn’t so much flow as wobble.

After the parade the kids would put down their bikes and head over to the parkway in front of our house for punch and cookies while the parents stood around and talked about how hot it was. Some parents, who were in the know, would wander to the deck in our back yard where someone had placed a cooler full of Anheuser-Busch products. Over the years, our deck has become a popular site for many of the parents who were in the know.

One gentleman, who asked to remain anonymous, told me Thursday after the parade, that our deck was the best place to watch the parade. When I pointed out that you can’t see the parade from our deck, he just smiled.

I like to make fun of the bike parade and of my wife and Lana’s organizational zeal, but the truth is, I like it. It’s the sort of thing that neighborhoods in small towns used to do but seldom do any more.