Anyone looking to get a take on Round Pond would best be served by not jumping to conclusions. For starters, the name Round Pond suggests a small body of water in a wooded inland setting, perhaps neighboring Attean Township or Scraggly Lake. The fact is, Round Pond is neither inland nor even a pond. It is a small burg nestled around a perfectly scooped-out, protected harbor on the Pemaquid peninsula in midcoast Maine.

Such a locale might make you think it's a rough-and-tumble fishing port or a tony tourist mecca.Yet, while the wealthy do commingle with the working class here, neither of these descriptions is quite right. Even a spin by on Route 32, which cuts through town, won't tell you much. The ocean and bustling waterfront are barely visible from the road. You'll pass a blandly modern post office, a cemetery, a general store, some handsome Capes, Victorians, and farmhouses, two pretty churches - one white and steepled, one brown and towered - an inn, a kayak place, a real estate office, and a few artist studios and galleries. A hill and a curve and - boom - Round Pond quickly becomes a lovely blur in your rearview mirror.

But even if you were to stop and explore its shady side roads and find the harbor and hang out at the town dock and tuck into a lobster dinner and visit the galleries and stores here, you still wouldn't get the full take on Round Pond. It would do nothing, for example, to prepare you for the fact that this secluded, classic coastal Maine village is a hotbed of lefty sentiment.

Well, that might not be exactly right, either, but it is surely the impression anyone who attends Round Pond's now-legendary Fourth of July parade might come away with. And for good reason.

There is no other Fourth of July parade like it in Maine. Instead of cloggers, Shriners, and oompah bands, Round Pond's signature event features the Tacky Tourists (replete with zinc oxide smeared on their noses and a synchronized, folding lawn chair routine), "lawnmower Shriners," and kazoo orchestras. Instead of beauty-pageant queens, there are cross-dressers. Instead of military displays, they have the Round Pond Uncivil Defense Militia. Instead of tossing candy, people throw bait. And judging by the looks of the townsfolk, they rarely miss their mark.

But the real standout of these parades is their unabashed skewering of both local and national politicians and politics. Recent floats have featured such themes as the "Bush-bin Laden Family Reunion" and, shortly after his death, Ronald Reagan in a coffin, which generated some ill feelings and negative press for its tastelessness. Largely, though, these "political" floats have reflected issues affecting residents' lives: the state shutdown a few years back (depicted in a float by an empty desk, an unmanned phone, and a donation can), someone's feelings about erstwhile Speaker of the House John Martin ("Stinker of the House"), or that Hollywood came to town ("Massage in a Bottle"); popular culture, Maine-style ("Martha Stewart's Clever Kelp Cutouts"); or the proposal to eliminate the town's dump ("Don't Dump the Dump").

But can you judge an entire community by its parade?

You might want to ask one of its founders and organizers, artist Kathy Mack, a longtime resident of Round Pond who works and lives in one of the stunning Victorians along the main drag. With close-cropped, tousled red hair, she more resembles a former rock star than a small-town civic leader. Chances are good she would balk at such a label, though. In fact, when asked how the parade came to be, she says with a wry smile, "Over a glass of wine in February, the same way all good ideas are born around here."

It was mainly in honor of Carrol Hanna, she says, who, for years, ran the city dock and always oversaw a big celebration on the Fourth. The year after his death, no celebration took place, and the general consensus around town, according to Mack, was, "Well, that was boring." The next year, the current parade came into being. Handmade posters were put up. One of them, which was drawn by Mack's young daughter and said: "Show your stars and strip," might have been an inadvertent harbinger of what was to come.

From the start, it was a free-for-all, according to another of the parade's founders, Kathy Moses, a pleasant and soft-spoken woman with short, thick gray hair who has been a resident of Round Pond for thirty years. The posters only went up a week in advance, she says. People threw costumes and floats together the morning of the parade with whatever they could find in their attics and barns. A couple of the town's kids were sent off to divert traffic. And permits? Permits?

Moses asserts the political twist just sort of evolved over the years. "Much of it's still local," she says, "and very much for ourselves." She adds that while the parade may seem to contain a certain amount of bias (some folks have gone so far as to call it mean-spirited), a lot of it is inside humor, intended for Round Pond residents - both seasonal and year-round. The Tacky Tourists, for example, are tourists (or at least summer people), and the person behind the controversial Reagan float was a staunch Reagan supporter.

And while women like Mack and Moses still participate in the parade, you can tell some of its shine has disappeared for them - in part because their kids are now grown, and partly because anyone can get tired of anything after doing it for the better side of twenty years. But one gets the sense it's also because the parade has turned into something it was never intended to be: a tourist attraction. Thousands - thousands - now pack in along the parade route each year, coming from all over, having to park and walk from as far back as the town of Bristol. The fire department oversees crowd control and directs traffic. There are walkie-talkies - and clipboards. It's all a long way from that first parade, in which there may have been more participants than spectators. Asked what she thinks about the parade these days, Moses shrugs, and gracefully sidesteps the question. "I've never seen it," she says. "I'm always in it."

Parade aside, there seems to be fairly strong resistance across town to anything that would make Round Pond more attractive to the outside world. And that's because it's more of a year-round community than summer destination, and always has been. The village of Round Pond is actually part of the town of Bristol, which was incorporated in 1765 and has a current population of 2,000 (a quarter of which, Moses estimates, are Round Pond residents). During its heyday, toward the end of the nineteenth century, Round Pond boasted a successful granite quarry, a pogy rendering plant, several grocery stores, two hotels, a billiard parlor, a milliner's shop, a butcher's shop, two blacksmiths, a rigging and sail loft, and was served daily by a steamship company. It was considered the place on the peninsula.

Of course, all this comes as no news to Gordon Fossett, who, at seventy-two, is not only a lifelong Round Ponder but can also trace his family roots here back to the 1700s. Fossett, who is known by all in town, works on construction equipment in winter but mows for the locals in summer and knows every wet spot and sinkhole in the area as though it were his own backyard. And in a way, it is. Farmhand fit, his skin sunbaked to a saddle-leather brown and his thick hank of gray-blond hair shoved under a railroad engineer's hat, Fossett is something of the unofficial town historian. He tells of the boom times, when the pogy fleets and fish factories kept the waterfront busy ("and not smelling too good"), and how the granite quarry meant jobs for locals. He can mentally walk up and down through town, naming every business: the Prentiss Hotel (now the Inn at Round Pond), Bert Steere's store (a real estate office), J.E. Nichols (King Ro Market), the schoolhouse he attended - "four grades upstairs, four grades down" - that is nearly derelict and used only for storage. Every so often he punctuates one of his remarks with a: "this, that, the other, and so forth," implying there's always much more to tell.

When he was a kid, he says, the street was lined with wooden sidewalks, and he and his friends would use them as sled runs. In those days, folks didn't venture much farther than Damariscotta, which is located at the top of the peninsula. "Rockland," he says, "was a special trip. Portland was a real trip." What he most remembers growing up is how everyone knew each other, how the old timers sat around the general stores and swapped gossip. Fossett says there's not so much of that now. You might think he'd be rankled by the changes, but he says no. He's welcoming of newcomers and has always taken part in the parade. Still, when he casts his glance out over one of those fields he mows and knows so well and talks about how, when he was a kid, he used to get twenty-five cents a day to gather hay, you can bet the scene he sees before him is from another time.

It's not a far stretch to picture that Round Pond of yore. The village has been spared a lot of new development. There's money here, yes, but it's discreet. There are no yachts in the harbor. The one or two McMansions that have elbowed their way in simply look silly. Most of the homes - whether they've been rehabbed and updated or remain weather-beaten and whitewashed - fit right into the landscape.

And while there are a handful of shops and eateries that cater to the summer folk, there is only one place to stay in the village: the beautifully restored and renovated Inn at Round Pond, a handsome nineteenth-century mansard, plunked down in the heart of town. Though set a good stretch back from the water, the place is all sea air and sunlight. The three suites have big, comfy beds, plenty of lounging space and are nicely decorated. They are also telephone- and TV-free. Owners Sue and Bill Morton are relative newcomers to innkeeping (he was in computers; she was in the clergy), but they show a real zeal for what they do. The inn's kitchen door is always open. The Mortons actually had it removed when they were renovating to encourage guests to stop by and chat if they're so inclined or wander out into the gardens that they (and their visiting adult offspring) have been coaxing (and sometimes hacking) back into shape. Sue's multicourse, home-cooked breakfast will set you on your way for a day's exploring.

But where to start? Of course, one can "do" the peninsula, with its famed 1827 Pemaquid Point Light, historic Fort William Henry, picture-postcard New Harbor, and sandy Pemaquid Beach, among other attractions, but there's plenty to keep you occupied within walking distance.

Back Shore Road makes a nice stroll from town. The houses are clustered together near the harbor, but as you retreat deeper into the woods, the spaces between them widen and the air changes and cools. There's a Nature Conservancy trail (it's unmarked - you'll need directions) that will take you down to the water's edge with views of Muscongus Sound and Louds Island. You'll want to mind your footing, though. The ledge is steep, and the water deep.

Back at the harbor, a timeless tableau: the usual mix of pleasure and working craft in the filled-to-capacity anchorage, and the same mix of working and leisure class folk milling about. A yellow Lab (de rigueur for any proper working port) makes the rounds, mooching pats and treats. Sunburned teenage girls saunter in swimsuits and shorts, breaking young men's hearts with every step. A chubby kid is hard at toil, bleaching and scrubbing the bottom of his beat-up dory, pontificating on his methodology to his buddies who listen closely. Before long, the kid's leaning back, and his friends have taken over - and look as though they feel privileged to be doing so.

At the very peopled Granite Hall Store - a Round Pond institution - tots fidget in line for penny candy at this old-timey emporium, while adults jostle for souvenirs. Over at the Anchor Inn Restaurant, a local family f?te - grandpa's birthday perhaps, or a newborn baby - is taking place in the main dining room. On the oceanfront porch, tourists dressed in togs ranging from campground casual to haute couture pick and sample from the abundant seafood on the menu and gasp when a brave soul - an overheated line cook, maybe - plunges into the bracing drink.

Evening will find almost every outdoor picnic table taken at the Muscongus Bay Lobster Pound. Most of the diners seem to have been here before and know what they're doing. Families haul in coolers filled with salads, chips, bread, desserts, and beer. (The only sides offered with your lobster and clams are butter and corn.) Young men roam about, calling out names and delivering steaming orders to the tables. Kids run around. There's an air of communal conviviality - as though this were one big Maine summer party - or maybe it's just the way the electric blue dusk softens everything.

Soon, it will be dark. The mosquitoes will be out in force, and the Pound and the harbor will be still. (Apparently, everyone knows to clear out before the bugs move in.) The thought of a warm shower, your king-sized bed, and the promise of a cool ocean breeze wafting through your rooms makes you hightail it, too. You don't, after all, want to look like you don't belong.

Although, on second thought, why not? Maybe someone would even toss you a lawn chair and invite you to join next year's parade.

In a place like Round Pond, you just never know.