There are milestones. And then there are milestones in Lyme. Dr. Bill Irving, retired pediatrician, has put out the word – yes, there will be the annual spontaneous heart-felt gathering of Fourth of July parade goers again this year at Cove Road and Route 154 in Lyme.
It’s the fiftieth observance of what started out as Irving kids and friends banging pots and pans, waving American flags and ceremonially tossing some tea bags into the Hamburg Cove. Hundreds of people turn out now, including multiple generations of families. There are no more teabags, but the tradition of free popsicles for everyone continues.
Irving said the commemoration, which includes stopping on the cove bridge to read all or parts of the Declaration of Independence and some words regarding the independence and freedom, will more or less get started, same as it has every year, as people congregate at Camp Claire field, just off of Cove Road. Congregating time is set for between 9 and 10 a.m.
Irving, now 85, and his wife Esther raised their family of two boys and a girl in the Hamburg Cove area. Read more about this Lyme family and community traditions in this article from the Times archives:
Dr. Bill’s Parade Marches On
Lyme Times July 5, 2007
Suzanne Thompson
What can be more traditional than a New England 4th of July town parade? The Lyme celebration, also known as the Cove Road parade is a local example of feisty colonial independence, some would say defiance, and Yankee ingenuity.
It started out as a family affair 49 years ago. Bill and Esther Irving’s three young children complained that nothing ever happened in Lyme, not even on the 4th of July. Out of inspiration and exasperation, Irving challenged the kids to create their own parade.
Pots and pans quickly became drums, the kids found some American flags and the family marched down Cove Road off of Route 156. They stopped at the low bridge where Falls Brook feeds into Hamburg Cove, ceremonially threw tea bags into the water and yelled their Hip, Hip Hoorays for America. Then they marched back home for popsicles.
The next year, neighboring families asked if they could join in. Each year, more people showed up. If they asked permission, Irving told them none was needed; the event belonged to everyone, not just his family. One grandmother showed up several years, he said, pushing two of her grandchildren in a rather large wheel barrow.
Before long Irving noticed more people started congregating the entrance to Camp Claire, the long-time church camp across the street. That give him the idea to invite the campers. On the first invitation, thirty-five youths showed up, dressed in costumes made up of paper bags and tinfoil. They added camp songs, cheers and yells to the mix.
“It was all just a spontaneous, slow-moving mushroom of fun that encircled the major theme of liberty, that this nation is a unique nation, and the Declaration of Independence,” Irving, 84, said the week before this year’s parade.
Thanks to word of mouth, a few home-made signs and small newspaper ads, the parade has become one of the endearing summer highlights for area residents and guests. It draws people with historic cars, floats, flags and home-made costumes.
Many of the participants are former patients, or children of patients of the pediatrician known as Dr. Bill, who had a practice in Old Saybrook for 41 years before retiring almost 11 years ago. Others may not realize who is behind this annual ritual. But they appreciate the serendipity and spirit.
“We don’t have any rules and regulations, we don’t have any committees, chair people; we don’t have any organization what-so-ever,” Irving said. Costumes are supposed to be home-made, nothing bought specifically for the occasion. The one exception: he ordered 700 popsicles for this year.
The parade also is steeped in respect for the principles of freedom and democracy, he said. Every year it stops on the bridge for tributes and a reading of parts or all of the Declaration of Independence.
“At that point we say a few things about our country and the incredible courage that was involved with the obtaining of independence, the sacrifices that were made by women, as well as men,” he said. “Traditionally, as in so many other aspects of life, women haven’t been given the credit due in winning and gaining independence for this country.”
The one clue that Irving is a city boy is how he describes the length of the parade route in terms of city blocks. The Columbia University and New York University medical school graduate can easily slip into the New York accent, too.
It was Esther’s family roots in Saybrook that brought the young couple to the area. In the summer of 1948, with no money, a fifteen-month old baby and years of medical school looming, they bought two new Raleigh bicycles with a $100 veterans’ bonus. They pedaled up Route 1 from New York, with their first son, Keith, strapped into a home-made biking seat fashioned out a wooden toilet training seat, curtain rods and fabric.
Both found summer work at the Dock and Dine, then just a little dining room and a long outdoor serving and take-out counter. In their pedals around the area, they discovered and coveted a little house on the side of Cove Road.
The family soon grew to three children, two boys and a girl. Ester and the kids became year-round residents while Bill completed internships and residencies in Connecticut and New York. After doing his final year of residency at Yale, Bill turned down a chance to practice in New York.
“We were living where we wanted to live, and it worked out that I could practice here,” he said. They were surprised to find their little dream house was for sale, and agreed to buy it without so much as inspecting the basement or upstairs floor.
Irving had the prescience or good fortune to choose Old Saybrook. On June 30, 1955, he opened his practice, aimed at specialized pediatric medicine for newborns and infants.
While some of his teachers questioned his choices, Irving found summer residents from Springfield, Hartford and New Haven accustomed to pediatricians. He also was just ahead of the suburban housing boom that followed Interstate 95, which changed the bucolic small farm communities forever.
Not everyone understood the nature of Irving’s specialty. He told of how one of his first patients, an elderly woman, greeted him.
“Thank God,” she said. “You are finally here. I have been waiting for a foot doctor.” Irving said he didn’t have the heart to embarrass the woman or hurt her feelings by explaining the differences of podiatry and pediatrics. So he examined her feet. But he didn’t send her a bill.
House calls also were standard practice, Irving said, not out of luxury but necessity and practicality.
“There was only one car in the family, and the dad drove that to work. So the doctor had to come to the patient.” he said. When he made a house call at White Sands Beach or other vacation communities, mothers who realized a doctor was around would quickly line up outside with their children.
Irving also had affiliation with Yale Medical School and Saint Raphael Hospital in New Haven, as well as Middlesex Hospital in Middletown. While he loved the very busy days of practicing medicine, he followed through on his commitment to Esther and himself that he would retire when he saw signs of what he called “sub-chronic fatigue.” He measured it by how quickly he answered the phone in the middle of the night after long days on call. When he started answering after the third ring, instead of the first, even though he hated to retire, he felt it was time to help his patients transition to new doctor.
Irving admits he didn’t make a good retiree, so he continued to work as a preceptor with St. Raphael’s Hospital. This is where experienced doctors serve as a coach, mentor, guide and evaluator to medical school students, hospital interns and residents.
As of this summer, Irving said he planned to organize the 2008 Lyme Parade. But after that 50th parade, it would probably be time to hand it off to another volunteer organizer who is looking to continue the tradition of a spontaneous, heart-felt community July 4 celebration.
The Irvings have three children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild, all in New England.