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I can remember when we first moved to Newburyport a million years ago, that a lot of our neighbors arranged their summer vacations around Yankee Homecoming. Nobody wanted to be in town during that week of madness, traffic, and no parking spaces anywhere in town. They might return for the Grand Finale on Saturday night (fireworks) and the parade next day. After all, it was your chance to see Ted Kennedy marching down High Street. Well, those days are long gone. I mean really, is Mayor Sean Reardon an acceptable alternative to Ted?
With all due respect to the volunteers who run this thing, and do a wonderful job with the resources available, the 2025 edition goes down as one big dud. The road race is fine, and people seemed amused at the bed pushing thing and the dueling waiters and waitresses. But the fireworks were pathetic (not enough money to put them on properly), sidewalk sales were slim pickings, and the parade but a dim version of the past. The only thing worth doing was Hyman’s annual shoe sale out by Shaw’s, in case in case you needed a new pair of boots. You can always count on them in that respect.
This writer marched with the C-10 float (C-10 is an organization that monitors the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant). I can remember way back in the 1970s and ’80s when C-10’s predecessor, the Clamshell Alliance, helped organize huge anti-Seabrook demonstrations. Those were supercharged events. On Sunday, aside from the three staff members who make up the C-10 office, I was one of five or six volunteers. That such a worthy organization could attract no more than that feeble number is really a bad sign.
Spectators were on the decidedly meager side. There were stretches along the route that had no one on them at all. But to be fair, what was there worth looking at? Bands were far and few between, floats were amateurish, and one very long and loud line of fire trucks isn’t exactly a big draw. And frankly, the amount of candy thrown by marchers to kids along the route, setting off frantic scrambles for decay-producing spoil, made me sick. All I could think of were crowds of hungry children begging for food in far-away countries.
Yankee Homecoming is a relic from the past. It’s fine for people around town to have a bit of fun in these otherwise dreary times, but I don’t think too many residents here give it a thought anymore. It’s probably never going away, the thirst for nostalgia is too strong for that. But does it matter? I don’t think so.
James Charles Roy
Newburyport resident
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