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GREENSBORO — You’ll find it in the Pink Room, written in chalk, on a blackboard beside a borrowed banjo. It’s an outrageous edict, a recipe for fun crafted by a twentysomething crazy about “steam punk.’’

All day every day
Hugs, eat dirt
Shake yo’ butt, round & round
Do that and yer good.

Sure, it’s ridiculous. But think about today’s soundtrack — the constant drumbeat of job losses, pay cuts and companies shutting down.

Then, read this message from the Pink Room. It could be the necessary song of our summer, especially today, the beginning of our long July Fourth weekend.

Every year, we decorate bikes, dole out barbecue, throw balloons, dance with balloons and stretch a huge flag across a street appropriately called Independence.

Yes, we in Greensboro try to do our Independence Day right.

It’ll start tonight outside Natty Greene’s downtown. The proud owners of the Pink Room — Greensboro’s Holy Ghost Tent Revival, a six-member band of twentysomethings — will go old school.

They’ll pull out instruments from yesteryear — like a euphonium, a trombone and two banjos — infuse them with the tools of modern-rock and sing loudly about the timeless pursuit of love … and steamboats.

On Saturday morning, at least 50 entries — everything from Corvettes to Revolutionary War re-enactors to a young crew peddling a bike-powered float — will join the Fun Fourth Parade.

So will William Poole. He’s there every year, bedecked in balloons, wearing sunglasses and holding a tape recorder playing something loud, anything from Green Day to the theme of the 1960s TV show, “Batman.’’ And he’s dancing.

Or as he writes in this year’s parade application: “Slide to the right and left. Clap. Slide, slide, slide. 50 times.’’

Every year, parade judges single him out for something — most patriotic, best in parade or at least an honorable mention.
“I love it,’’ he said the other day. “I just love it.’’

Poole works as an assistant physical education director at Camp Joy, a city-run summer camp for kids with special needs. Poole is 43, developmentally disabled, a graduate of Camp Joy.

“It brings him fulfillment because it’s something he can do,’’ says the Rev. Pauline J. Poole, William’s mother and an associate minister at Mount Olive AME Zion Church. “And he just beams. It’s his way of being a part.’’

Holly Barnes understands that. When she was 8, she rode her bike in the annual July Fourth parade through Greensboro’s Kirkwood neighborhood, her neighborhood.

Now, at 35, married and a mother, Holly Barnes Hofbauer will watch her 6-year-old daughter Emma ride her “big girl bike,’’ pink and purple, during Kirkwood’s Saturday afternoon parade.

For Hofbauer, the parade sights are still the same.

The start on Princess Ann. The decorated strollers and bikes.

And the big American flag, stretched between two trees, across Independence.

“I guess it’s like a full circle,’’ says Hofbauer, an assistant teacher at Greensboro Day School. “My mom always laughs, 'This is what we did.’ ’’

And this is what we do. Every July Fourth in Greensboro we see the collective faces of our city come out in force — the outrageous, the traditional, the downright quirky and artistic.

It all goes back to that chalkboard message in the Pink Room, inside the Band House of the Holy Ghost Tent Revival.

“We’re not only celebrating our independence, we’re celebrating celebration,’’ says Patrick Leslie, the band’s bassist. “That’s important these days, especially with what’s going on now. And people are doing so many things in their lives, they need to feel connected so they can … what?’’

“Feel alive,’’ drummer Ross Montsinger interjected.

“Yeah,’’ Leslie said. “That’s it.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com