TINY TOWN PLANS OLD-FASHIONED FOURTH.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

There are plenty of incorporated towns in this country named Liberty, Independence and Freedom, but there's only one Patriot.

It sits on the Ohio River in the southern part of Indiana, and the last time the U.S. Census Bureau looked in on Patriot four years ago, 221 people were calling it home.

Since then, five people have either died or moved because the sign downtown lists the population of Patriot at 216 now, says Sharlene Honaker, who runs the Patriot Pizza Parlor.

There is no school, no hospital, no city hall, no chamber of commerce, no courthouse and no police or fire department in Patriot, but there is a pizza parlor.

Which just goes to show you small-town America can survive and even prosper without big-city ticket items, but it can't get by without pizza.

Patriot caught my eye while I was looking over a U.S. Census Bureau list of incorporated places in the country with Independence Day-related names.

Did you know, for instance, that there are 27 incorporated cities and towns nationwide named Liberty, 37 Franklins, 33 Washingtons and 26 Jeffersons? Or that there are 10 towns called Independence, four Freedoms, three Reveres and two Colonials?

But there's only one Patriot, the government says.

I've got to figure with a name like that, the place is going to have one heck of a blowout this Fourth of July. Parades, marching bands, flyovers, the whole nine yards.

``Nope, we've got nothing big planned,'' says Linda Fisk, who works in the front office of the Patriot Water Co., which also doubles as the town hall.

``We'll just have a little, bring-your-own get-together in the community park with hot dogs and hamburgers, like every year,'' she said.

``Most everybody in Patriot will show up, and they'll all bring their own fireworks.''

In other words, Patriot is having a Norman Rockwell kind of Fourth. The kind of Fourth most people living in L.A. and other big cities would give their eye teeth to have again.

Pure Americana. Nothing big or fancy. Just a picnic in the park with everybody in town, who all know each other by first name. Bring your own food and fireworks.

No admission or cover charge, no security guards checking bags, no tethering the kids because you're afraid to let them wander off in a crowd of strangers, no two-hour traffic jams for a half-hour fireworks show.

Nope, not in Patriot.

``It is exactly like a Rockwell Fourth back here,'' says Phil Vannatter, who lives a few miles up the Ohio River from Patriot. ``We'll be having a picnic on the farm, doing a little fishing in the pond and setting off some fireworks later on.''

If the name rings a bell, it should. Vannatter was one of the lead Los Angeles Police Department detectives on the O.J. Simpson murder case. After O.J. walked, so did Phil.

He's now the second-most famous person in these parts, right behind Elwood Mead, a local Patriot boy who struck out on his own and made a name for himself as chief engineer on the Hoover Dam project.

The country ultimately honored Elwood by naming Lake Mead in Nevada after him. Patriot honored its native son with a plaque downtown.

Most of the kids who have grown up in Patriot have struck out on their own, says Peg Fisk, who owns the town's only grocery store.

Besides the pizza parlor and Peg's place, there are only two other businesses in Patriot: a gas station and a carry-out, which is what the people in Patriot call their liquor store.

``There's not a whole lot of work in Patriot, so we lose more than half our kids,'' says Peg, whose daughter-in-law, Linda, is the one who works over at the Patriot Water Co.

Peg's probably the closest thing Patriot has to a historian, since this grocery store has passed from her grandfather to her parents and now to her.

As far back as she can remember, Patriot's taste in Fourths of July has run to Rockwell's - to community picnics in the park, ballgames and fireworks, she says.

``We just enjoy a good, old Americana Fourth of July here,'' Peg says, excusing herself because business is starting to get pretty hectic in her grocery store Thursday.

Patriot is stopping by to pick up its hamburgers and hot dogs for Saturday.

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