Love Where You Live experiment: Go to a parade

It’s Wednesday night, dinnertime, and I’m weaving at top speed through the back roads of Blacksburg, trying to make it downtown before the snare drums do. Cranking my window down as I parallel park, I cock an ear. Are they coming? Is that a distant brass section or just the complaints of Main Street traffic? Finally jammed into a mostly legal space, I grab Ruby and run to the corner of Roanoke and Main. Two silent, stolid police cars are rolling toward us, signaling the start of the Blacksbu...