THE INTERVIEW: The July 4 Guys

We caught up with the duo that powers the Franklin July 4 Coalition, Paul Kortick (left) and Joe Carmignani (right) for a few minutes on Thursday night, as the transformation of the Common neared completion... Together, they have taken on most of the responsibility for the event for the past several years, using their personal vacation time in many cases to handle all the details. They have also handled fund raising; the town pays nothing for the event.

Q: So, Paul and Joe, how long have you guys been doing this?

JOE: Since 2017

Q: Paul, Joe, what do you do when you're not doing this? What are your day jobs?

PAUL: I sell software.

JOE: I service retirement plans.

Q: What are you expecting this year?

PAUL: I think it's going to be a good crowd. We always look at the weather for the most important factors and stuff we can’t control. So far, it's looking great. So, we are keeping our fingers crossed. If the weather holds, yeah, it should be a fantastic event.

JOE: ...then there’s the music...

PAUL: Yeah, we've tried to make a big effort to have great music every night. So, it's just the carnival Friday night. We’ve got a reggae band, Duppy Conqueror Saturday and also the all-day Blues Festival. We've got Ed Peabody, Neal & the Vipers, Mikey Junior, Mike Crandall, Bruce Katz coming up from New York, and Sugar Ray and the Bluetones. Sunday night, we've got an 80s Retro band. So, it should be fun!

And we got a lot of local talent too. We got the Zajac Brothers playing Sunday afternoon; we’ve got a great mix of local, regional, and national talent.

Q: What else is exciting or new?

JOE: We have the discount wrist bands. You can go to our website and buy them, from the carnival itself.

PAUL: And assuming the weather continues to cooperate it looks we're actually going to get the fireworks up and running. And those will start at 10 pm on Saturday at Franklin High School. You can view that from many locations but for my money the Middle School parking lot is the place, but everyone has a preference, I guess.

Q: And when people come, where can they park?

PAUL: They can park in the parking lots at the Middle School and High School, behind the former Catholic school, and most of the places on the side streets have plenty of parking...

JOE: There’s also parking at the Senior Center.