Where I Learned How to Throw a Party

Posted: July 22nd, 2012 | Author: kristen from motherload | Filed under: Discoveries, Holidays, Little Rhody, Summer | 1 Comment »

Whenever someone comes to our house I set out a dish of nuts. It’s some old school hostess impulse that I just can’t suppress.

My husband mocks me for this. In that good-natured way spouses goad each other about idiosyncrasies they’ll have to endure in the other person for the rest of their lives.

For the longest time I explained my setting-out-of-nuts as a behavior I gleaned from my parents. In ancient days I remember their cocktail parties where bowls of peanuts and cashews littered every end table in the house. The soul-mate link between nuts and booze was imprinted on me at an early age.

But last week I realized where I got it all from. Not just the nut thing, but any knack or know-how for party-throwing in general. I didn’t learn it from my parents, my college friends, or even my nut-mocking husband. Turns out I learned how to throw a party from my hometown.

This came to me while reading The Bristol Phoenix, the fine local paper I’ve no doubt Sarah Palin reads religiously. (She was, I assume, hesitant to reveal this to Katie Couric for fear that the paper’s exclusive, small readership would be threatened by mention of it in the mainstream media.) So there I was on the treadmill at Dad’s house, pouring (quite literally) over the Phoenix‘s July 4th retrospective edition.

Bristol, Rhode Island—if you didn’t already know—is home to “the oldest and longest-running Fourth of July parade.” Or, as the locals say it, “Forta” July. The Husband recently asked me just what “longest-running” meant, and I explained (sighing) that the town has thrown this party every year for 227 years straight. Longer’n anyone else.

Each parade is also long-running in and of itself. They tend to last three hours, sometimes more. No joke. They’re epic. Replete with marching bands from as far off as Minnesota, Mummers, politicians, jugglers, Indians, war vets, vintage cars, ear-splitting cannons, majorettes, and Miss Forth of July and her resplendent lip-glossed court.

And I don’t want to brag, but when I was a kid Lorenzo Lamas was in the parade once too.

Bristolians have a rabid, all-consuming love for this event. Their patriotism borders on the obsessive. How to explain… You know that one street in some towns where every house goes turbo-overboard with Christmas decorations? Like, if you buy a place there you’re committing to spending weeks on a ladder hanging lights and have to shell out a staggering sum to recreate Santa’s toy shop on your front lawn?

Well, the whole town of Bristol is like that one crazy uber-Christmas street. But instead of animatronic reindeer and dads in Santa suits handing out candy canes, patriotic bunting is swathed across every house. Red, white, and blue flowers fill each garden bed and window box. And to mark the legendary parade route the lines down the streets are painted—you guessed it—red, white, and blue. Oh, and it looks like Betsy Ross barfed up flags over every inch of the town.

I’ve been in homes with red, white, and blue toilet paper. For realz. Even your ass can get in on the action in Bristol.

I’ve talked up this event to roughly every person I’ve ever met and no one I’ve brought has ever felt disappointed by the divine spectacle that is the Bristol Forta July Parade. Just this year my friend Lily came from California with her family. Her husband spent the day shooting photos like a madman and muttering, “I want to move to this town. I want to move to this town.”

What I’m trying to say? My hometown knows how to throw a party.

So then, here are The 6 Things My Hometown has Taught Me about How to Throw a Party:

Over-serve your guests: On Forta July every grill is Bristol buckles under the weight of burgers, sausages, and these local hot dogs called saugies. Vats of chourico and peppers sputter on every stovetop. And backyard coolers are stockpiled with bottomless supplies of canned, volume-drinkin’ beer. Everyone eats and drinks “a wicked lot,” and there are always more leftovers than you know what to do with. It’s perfect. In my worst nightmares I host a party where we run out of food or drinks. It’s an Italian girl’s most vile fear.

The more the merrier: 364 days a year Bristol‘s a sleepy seaside town of 20,000. But on July 4th the place is off the hook. Town officials claim as many as 250,000 revelers have attended some year’s festivities, though they may’ve inhaled a bit too much cannon smoke when coming up with those numbers. At any rate, at 5AM you can start staking out sidewalk space with blankets and lawn chairs. And the place is suh-warming at the stroke of five. Call New Englanders crusty, unfriendly, and provincial, but this town welcomes one and all on Forta July, and come they do. I guess that’s what a 227-year-old reputation for a good time will get you.

Build the hype:  Weeks before The Fourth there are orange cart derbies, firemen’s water battles, concerts, fireworks, a carnival, and large patriotic Mr. Potato Head statues everywhere you turn. (Don’t ask.) It’s pre-party central. When I was a kid there was even a greasy pole-climbing contest. (Don’t ask.) If you’re not in the Forta July spirit by parade day you might as well move to Canada. Now personally, I don’t have pre-parties before any parties that I throw (though the greasy pole thing isn’t a half-bad idea), but I do sent out invitations. There’s something about having a paper invite on your fridge for a few weeks before a shindig that helps to get you fired up for a good time.

Make it a regular event: One of the best things about Forta July is knowing it’ll come again next year. Four years ago The Husband and I threw a Christmas par-tay—a kid-banishing get-a-sitter kinda event. It’s become tradition. Mark wears a plaid blazer and brews a toxic vat of bourbon punch. I bake a terrifying tower of cookies and line the path to our door with paper bag luminaries. And we have a ham. It’s the second Saturday after Thanksgiving every year. Long before invites go out people tell us our party is on their calendars. Friends have texted me in October to say they’ve found the perfect dress. I love nothing more than a party that keeps giving year after year. Apparently others do too.

Uphold tradition… and toss in some surprises: Parts of the Bristol parade have been the same since I was a baby—likely decades (maybe centuries) longer. There are always marching bands, Budweiser Clydesdales, white-uniformed sailors, and Boy Scout troops. The parade  starts with the Bristol P.D. (on motorcycles) and ends with the town’s fire trucks. There’s beautiful security in knowing how it will all be. Well, not all. There’s always plenty of new crap too—skateboarding stunt kids, Colonial-clad singing troupes, floats featuring 4-H goats. Stuff you’re delighted by or need to bitch about later. Give the people what they want, I say. But toss out some unexpected elements too. Especially if you know of a good band where everyone’s dressed like the cast from Little House on the Prairie.

Happy hosts, happy guests. Why do so many people suck at having fun at their own parties? On Forta July most Bristolians have houses packed like clown cars with out-of-town guests, but I assure you the fine residents of this town are still having themselves a BIG OLD TIME, almost like it’s Texas or something it’s so big, the good time they’re having. What I’m saying is, it’s large. I make it my business to have fun at my own parties, even if someone has spilled red wine on the white dog or knocked over the potpourri bowl while having sex in my bathroom.

Oh and the other thing? Set out a bowl of nuts. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen done here on the Fourth of July, but the way I see it, it can’t hurt.

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