When you walk your dog on the streets of Small Town, America, you never know quite what to expect on a holiday or any other day. Will July 4th be the same as any other dog-walking occasion, or will you find the starting line for a holiday road race blocking your usual path?

Reggie and I didn’t plan to watch the start of this morning’s fourth annual 4 on the 4th road race, but there we stood as the front-runners darted from the gate, followed by an impressive pack and trailed by the inevitable laggards. Today’s 4-mile, 108-foot road race was a fundraiser for Pathways for Keene, a non-profit organization that lobbies for the development of (and maps) bike and pedestrian pathways through town, including the very rail-to-biketrail that Reggie and I walk nearly every time we head downtown.

Although I admire runners, I never could be one, being far too lazy to run anywhere I could walk. My own (and Reggie’s) slow-pokey, couch-potato-ish tendencies notwithstanding, though, I couldn’t help but get into the 4 on the 4th spirit, deciding to share exactly four images that sum up a walker’s view of downtown Keene on Independence Day: life in the slow lane, illustrated.

On July 4th as on every other day, the bronze sentinel at the head of downtown’s Central Square stands tall, watching over Main Street traffic: Keene’s sentinel, it seems, agrees with my take-it-slow mentality, for you won’t see him running in any road races, four-mile or otherwise. Independence Day is one of the occasions when the flags come out in Central Square, a dozen or more star-spangled banners ringing the rotary at the heart of downtown. Whereas a town like Findlay, Ohio flies its flags 365 days a year, Keene saves her patriotic best for special occasions. The 4th of July is like any other day in most ways, but not all: although downtown eateries such as Timoleon’s diner were serving breakfast to both tourists and locals alike, the Iraq war protesters that stand with their signs beneath the Central Square sentinel on most Saturday mornings were absent today, exercising their right to sleep in on their day off.

My favorite image from this morning’s 4th of July downtown dog-walk, though, was an accidental tableau snapped while Reggie and I waited for the Central Square traffic signal to turn. What’s more patriotic than a distant glimpse of a nameless Dad taking a leisurely walk with dog and baby-stroller within sight of an American flag and Keene’s famous Jumanji mural?

The only thing that would make this picture more quintessentially American would be the knowledge that while Dad was out walking with Junior and Rover, Mom was back home baking an apple pie. Baseball and hotdogs, anyone?