The town fireworks may not be until Saturday, but down in Swifts Beach the residents  came out in the sweltering sun for the annual Fourth of July Parade.

It's tough to find a neighborhood full of real neighbors anywhere these days, and in a seasonal community it seems almost natural not to know ones neighbor. At the Swifts Beach Improvement Association's Fourth of July parade, there was no sign of anything but a close community.

"It's really quite wonderful," said the association's government liaison Kate Furler. "There's a lot of people who are summer folks and their kids look forward to this."

Seated on a peninsula the neighborhood is full of winding streets some of which, when the streets are lined with parked cars, only remain two way streets by the grace of people who pull over and wait for the car coming toward them to pass.

Even congestion is dealt with in a neighborly fashion.

"It's part of the charm of this area that it is a lot of houses...and neighbors talk to each other," said Furler.

Adults and kids were decked out in their best patriotic gear, including 10-year-old Destiny Ingersoll  of Wareham who won first place in her age group for her Betsy Ross costume.

"She made the first American flag," said Ingersoll.

Her friend, 10-year-old Erin Diehl of Wareham, had to adjust her costume for the sake of avoiding heat stroke.

"I was supposed to be an eagle but it was way too hot for that so I just wore the hat," she explained. A suit of feathers and a heat wave are not a healthy combination.

Public Relations Coordinator Rosemary Pacheco said the parade is one way to give back to a neighborhood that she remembers as always being tight knit.

"I used to come to children's bingo in the sixties," said Pacheco. Children's bingo is just one activity that the association's clubhouse hosts and, like the parade, one more thing that brings the neighborhood  together.