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Cotty Barlow: The Passing Parade

Think Fourth of July in Ivoryton and Cotty Barlow immediately comes to mind. Cotty has managed the Fourth of July parade since he took over from Susie Beckman, who started Ivoryton’s Independence Day march. Cotty can’t remember precisely when he began.

“Oh, maybe six years ago, maybe eight years ago, something like that,” he says.

But he wants to make something very clear as he talks about his participation in the parade.

“Don’t make this story all about me,” he says. “There are many people involved.”

The parade is sponsored by the Essex Park & Recreation Department, the Ivoryton 4th of July Committee, and the Ivoryton Village Alliance; the latter group also sponsors the Illuminations, the Christmas Light Show, the Farmer’s Market on the Ivoryton Green, and the Pumpkin Festival.

This year, though the parade remains reassuringly unchanged, there will be one significant difference. Cotty is no longer in charge.

“It was time to step down, to pass it on to somebody else. I’d done it long enough,” he says.

Still, Cotty will remain a member of the parade committee, but Donna Lee Gennaro has now taken over the top job. Since moving to Ivoryton three years ago, she has taken an active part in the Ivoryton Village Alliance.

“I love community events, particularly events that are free and can involve the whole community,” Gennaro says.

Looking back, Cotty says his involvement with the parade started prosaically enough: on a ride with another Ivoryton resident, Chris Shane, to what is officially called the Transfer Station but unofficially the town dump. The two passed through Deep River, and noticed American flags flying on lampposts in preparation for the Fourth of July.

“I told Chris that we had to do that,” Cotty recalls.

The result was that American flags went up in Ivoryton, and at minimal cost.

“For years we had no budget,” Cotty says.

The festivities did receive a $200 stipend from the Essex Park & Recreation Department, used largely to replace tattered flags, print posters advertising the parade, and purchase incidentals, like ceremonial sashes for the honorary grand marshals. This year there are two grand marshals, Jim and Nan Crowell of the Ivory Tavern.

Ivoryton is not Cotty’s first experience with a Fourth of July parade. That came many years ago as a youngster in Madison where he spent summers with his family in a house that his grandmother owned. The house, he added, is still owned by members of his family.

“We paraded down Middle Beach Road; someone had been chosen to be Uncle Sam; I can’t remember very much else,” Cotty says.

Summer were in Madison, but for the rest of the year, Cotty lived in Plainfield, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University, majoring in Russian history and then a graduate program at the American Institute for Foreign Trade in Arizona. He envisioned a career in international business and worked for a while in Manhattan.

Careers, nonetheless, have a funny way off going off in unexpected directions. Cotty, who has sailed since childhood, ended up working in the Caribbean as a boat captain.

On a visit to his parents, who by then had moved to Essex, he met a neighbor whose mail was being misdelivered to his parent’s house. That neighbor is now Cotty’s wife Leslie. Like his father, Cotty’s first name is Carlton; he says he was sometimes called Carl, but Leslie quickly adds that today everybody calls him Cotty.

Boats have long been Cotty’s business. In Essex, he ran his own yacht brokerage firm, specializing in selling what he describes as “lobster yachts, a Down East style hull with a single engine.” The boats were popular, he adds, with people who had owned larger sailing yachts and wanted to downsize and move, as age sometimes dictated, from sail to motor.

“I met wonderful people, clients became friends,” says Cotty, who retired two years ago.

These days, in the spring and summer, he and Leslie put in considerable time working on their large garden.

“A lot of time. It was such a terrible winter. A lot of clean up, mulching now,” he says.

He is also reluctantly spending time cleaning the garden of droppings from the geese and their goslings who wander up from the Falls River, which borders the back of the Barlow’s property.

“Watch where you’re walking,” he advises a visitor.

In the flood of 1982, the Falls River itself came up, filling the Barlows’ house with four feet of water and leaving a thick coating of mud.

In addition to his own gardening, Cotty is a member of the Ancient Order of Essex Weeders, the group of men who take care of the traffic islands at the intersections of routes 154 and 153. Cotty points out he is actually a “legacy weeder,” as his late father also belonged to the group.

For the Essex Land Trust, of which he and Leslie are life members, Cotty mows one of the properties, Cross Lots, in the spring and fall.

This year, Cotty joined Leslie in reading once a week to Essex Elementary School classes. Actually, he likes it best when the students read to him.

“It’s a chance to interact with kids, and to act as a mentor sometimes. Kids need adults to listen to them,” he says.

For his own reading, Cotty likes historical biography and mystery. He has also written his own book, a genealogical history of his family. He is an 11th-generation descendant of some of the original settlers of New England.

Cotty is an enthusiastic Ivoryton booster.

“There’s a vibrant, interesting spirit here. People are moving in; young people are moving in; more children at Essex Elementary come from Ivoryton,” he says.

Even though he is no longer heading the parade, Cotty loves the Fourth of July.

“It’s a time to celebrate our country, to remember what a great country it is,” he says.

This year on the Fourth of July, Cotty will have a chance to do something he has always been too busy to do before.

“I am going to be standing at the end of my driveway, waving and watching the parade go by,” he says.

Ivoryton Fourth of July Parade

Essex celebrates Independence Day with the Ivoryton Fourth of July Parade on Wednesday, July 4. All are welcome to march, no advanced registration is necessary. Vehicles meet on Cheney Street at 9:15 a.m.; marchers and bicycles meet at 9:30 a.m. the bottom Walnut Street. The parade kicks off at 10 a.m. followed by ceremonies on the Ivoryton Green at 11 a.m.