Eastham's Fourth Is a Library, a Big Band, and a Borrowed Sky

Eastham keeps its powder dry. The famous parade belongs to Windmill Weekend in September; the Fourth itself is a beach day and a borrowed fireworks show — Orleans' Rock Harbor display on Thursday the 2nd, visible across the water from First Encounter and the other bay beaches if you find a spot before the light goes.

What Eastham does have this week is one of the best library stretches on the Cape. The Eastham Public Library packs its kids' calendar into the first half of the week before it closes for the long holiday weekend — Firebirds players reading at Wednesday storytime, a magic show with Malik on Thursday the 2nd, and Dinoman when it reopens on the 7th. If you've got children underfoot this week, this is where to point them.

The week's grown-up centerpiece is Concerts on Windmill Green — the Cape Cod Moonlighters Big Band on Monday, July 6 at 7, free, on the grass beside the old windmill. Bring a blanket and low chairs; it's the closest thing Eastham has to a town gathering this week, and it's all the better for being unhurried. The farmers market runs Friday morning at the old T-Time site on Route 6 — a smart stop before the holiday-weekend grocery crush.

And then there's the Seashore, which is really Eastham's Fourth of July. Entrance is free July 3 through 5 at Coast Guard and Nauset Light — which also means more cars, so get there by mid-morning or take the Little Creek shuttle. The rangers run free canoe and kayak trips out of Salt Pond; reserve a few days ahead. Just leave the fireworks to the pros: they're illegal statewide, and doubly so on Seashore sand.

Eastham's holiday won't show up on a postcard. It's a band on a green, a kid clutching a library prize, the bay going pink while somebody else's fireworks climb the sky. The town that waits until September for its parade knows something about pacing a summer.