Totally Texas -- July 4th hot as a firecracker

I love fireworks, but they can be too late-night, or startlingly noisy for small children. So after the neighborhood bike parades, consider taking the family to an Old Fashioned Fourth at Dallas’ Heritage Village, 1515 South Harwood St. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., July 4, bring a picnic basket and tour the historic buildings, visit with enactors in costumes from the 1840’s to 1910’s, and try your hand at Victorian games and other activities. Tickets prices for the event are the normal admission -- $9 for adults (over 12), $7 for adults 65 and older, $5 for children ages 4-12, free for children age 3 and under.

The village’s 20 tree-shaded acres are available for tours and picnics regularly Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., and Sundays, noon - 4 p.m., with interpreters at the farmstead area. For additional information, call 214-413-3679 or see www.dallasheritagevillage.org/.

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And then, of course, there are fireworks! Every city seems to have its own, so I’ll only mention a couple I’ve seen personally. Get a head start with Addison’s Kaboom Town celebration a day early, July 3, in Addison Circle Park, just north of Beltline between Addison Road and Quorum Drive. Live music by the Dallas Wind Symphony starts at 5 p.m., followed at 7:15 by the Addison Airport Air Show. Besides the flyover of historic warplanes from the Cavanaugh Flight Museum, the show includes aerobatic accts and, new for 2012, a military F-16 flyover by the Oklahoma National guard from Tulsa’s 125^th Fighter Squadron. Fireworks at 9:30 are choreographed to music, followed by the after party. See www.addisontexas.net/ for details.

If there’s fire, there must be water -- at Dallas’ Fair Park Fourth. It’s on, yes, July 4. Admission to Fair Park, 3809 Grand Avenue, is free, including free admission to all museums, from 4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (Parking is $10 -- but there’s also a DART stop at the gate.) Events include “dancing water” shows at the Esplanade Fountain, with seated viewing of fireworks from inside the Cotton Bowl. (North Dallas residents also know there’s a pretty good view of the fireworks from the scenic overlook at Flagpole Hill, 8100 Doran Circle (off Northwest Highway), but good spots get filled early. See
www.fairpark.org for additional information and schedules.

For more fireworks listings, I found
www.metroplexbaby.dom/July4.htm helpful.

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Finally, as you celebrate, don’t forget the reason Americans cherish the Fourth of July. Consider visiting the Dallas Public Library’s Central branch to see for yourself a copy of the Declaration of Independence. On permanent exhibit on the library’s seventh floor is one of about twenty-five surviving copies of the broadside printed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. It is the only copy in the western United States, sometimes referred to as the “lost copy,” because it was rediscovered in 1968 during the closing of Leary’s Book Store in Philadelphia, where it had been in storage for more than a century.

The library is closed July 4, but open on weekends from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 - 5 p.m. Sunday. Also closed on Mondays, but open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. It’s free.