Celebrating Independence Day with panache is a longstanding tradition throughout La Jolla.
That legacy continues with colorful community Fourth of July celebrations.
On the Fourth, La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club will host its fourth annual drone “sky show,” along with homespun neighborhood parades taking place along Beaumont Avenue in Bird Rock and the Beach-Barber Tract.
Beach-Barber Tract north of Bird Rock is known not only for its proximity to Windansea Beach with its iconic surf shack, but also for its folksy neighborhood Fourth of July gatherings.
Among them is this La Jolla neighborhood’s annual Independence Day celebration, hosted for more than 50 years by its founder, “Uncle Sam” Max Elliott. Elliott doesn’t mind dressing up for the part. And how he became America’s favorite uncle is a tale worth telling.
“My wife and I started this event shortly after we moved here in the ‘70s,” said Elliott.
“We keep it intentionally low-key, hold it in the neighborhood we live in,” Elliott said. Guests, said Elliott, are always welcome and can expect to see lots of kids on bikes and trikes hauling wagons in a four-block walking route starting at 10 a.m., an hour after folks arrive on Monte Vista Avenue.
Elliott will once again don his red, white and blue holiday garb, which was donated to him long ago by the local owner of a costume business named Buffalo Breath.
“It’s not a parade,” noted Ron Jones, owner and station manager at Voice of La Jolla Internet Radio, which emcees Beach-Barber’s event annually. “It’s more of a large moving mass of locals marching behind a golf cart bearing amplified Sousa. I provide music before and when the crowd returns for cookies, watermelon and lemonade.”
Of their neighborhood event’s tone, Jones characterized it as being “totally small-town America, but without the floats and people squatting on curbs.” He added, “The Barber folks are’ the celebrants – total immersion in the holiday spirit.”
The neighborhood celebration kicks off with “Uncle Sam” Elliott delivering a patriotic speech, followed by music and residents marching down neighborhood thoroughfares on Monte Vista, Fern Glen, and Olivetas.
Elliott offered up an anecdote of a memorable and humorous Beach-Barber Tract Fourth of July escapade. “We encourage people to dress up,” he noted, adding that one year, teen boys opted to reenact “Washington crossing the Delaware River.” However, he noted, “They built a lifeboat out of cardboard and mounted it on top of a station wagon, with four of them standing on top. But it started to fall apart – and the kids had to jump off. That was not expected.”
