If you want to see what patriotism looks like, just come to Pottstown for the annual parade on the Fourth of July -- in the rain.

On Friday, I had the privilege of riding bikes in the High Street parade with our publisher Tom Abbott, promotions director Chris March and police reporter Brandie Kessler in a Mercury contingent of bicycles. The parade appearance was planned as a promotional event for BikePottstown, the free-bike loan program being run as a nonprofit out of TriCounty Bicycles on High Street.

Brandie and I also ran in the Preservation Pottstown 5k race (I placed second in my age group, thank you very much), and I dried off and changed in The Mercury restrooms before heading down to High Street to the parade start.

Parade organizer Bill Krause put our bikes directly behind the convertibles carrying the queen contestants and their escorts and a convertible carrying Pottstown Mayor Sharon Thomas. As we pulled out onto High Street, a light drizzle started, and the queens' escorts all got their umbrellas open to keep the queens' tresses dry. The mayor was undaunted by the drizzle, and endured most of the parade umbrella-less, waving and greeting the crowd as if nothing was amiss.

I thought that the crowds would be thinned by the weather, but what a surprise! Not only were there hundreds of people lining High Street, they were a far more enthusiastic, patriotic and proud crowd than I would have predicted.

Families were dressed in red, white and blue and flag-adorned T-shirts. Kids wore crazy hats (we counted four newspaper hats from The Mercury!) and senior citizens waved flags from their seats in lawn chairs.

People cheered, waved and applauded, mostly for the World War II veterans on the float behind us, but we got our fair share of pleasant greetings.

As the parade progressed, the rain picked up. By the time we reached High and Hanover, it was pouring. Still, no one seemed to mind. The Ricketts drill team kept drumming; the dancers on the Sunnybrook float kept dancing; the bands played; the bicyclists circled around; and Uncle Sam just waved at everyone.

One paradegoer, Tom Smoyer of Bechtelsville, told our news reporter: "People take showers all the time. It's just a drizzle."

I encounter a lot of cynicism in my work and a fair amount of negativity. (I read SoundOff every day, after all.) But when I rode my bright yellow BikePottstown cruiser down High Street, struggling to stay balanced, I was struck by the positive upbeat attitudes. The people along this route were of all generations, all races and political affiliations, all income levels. They came from the Boyertown, Spring-Ford, Pottsgrove and Douglassville areas to Pottstown's parade. There were lots of kids and a fair number of dogs. Everybody smiling -- and getting wet.

When I awoke Friday morning and saw that Pottstown's Independence Day celebration once again was falling under a cloud of bad weather, I was disappointed and felt sorry for the committee members who work so hard for this day, only to have it spoiled by rain.

But rain didn't spoil anything. Instead, it just drove home the point that you can't stop this town from enjoying the moment and having a good time.

You can't rain on our parade.