Every year during this very week, the one preceding July 4, I can't help but think back to the good ol' days — you know, when the Lakewood Fourth of July parade was getting its first gray hairs at the ripe age of 37.

For it was during the late 1990s that yours truly dressed up in camouflage and participated in that very same parade.

I didn't realize it then, but the parade was one of only a handful of times each year that I actually ventured into Lakewood. Coming from a little neighborhood that has no allegiances — there's nothing on top of my street sign — and going to a private school outside the Lakewood area, I had very little contact with the area bordered by Abrams and Gaston.

Seeing as my nameless-neighborhood didn't have a parade of its own, my classmates and I had the honor of being entered into the Lakewood version. Thinking back, it was probably good that most Lakewooders didn't often get to see me in my un-camouflaged state.

You see, although the parade theme changed year to year, we didn't. Two things were constant in my parade experience: The camo that we wore, and the water balloons that we carried.

When Lakewood went to the beach, we were dressed in camouflage, armed with our water grenades. When Lakewood went to the movies, we went dressed in camo, ready to get some people wet.