Ancient? Well, Glocester’s Fourth of July parade turns 83 this year.

Horribles? That depends on one’s opinion –– and that may be the point.

Irreverent and sometimes risqué, the Ancients and Horribles Parade will step off at 4 p.m. Saturday from Routes 100 and 98 and head along Putnam Pike. The first parade happened in 1926 and became a yearly tradition in Glocester’s Chepachet village.

The parade’s name originally parodied the Ancient and Honorable, according to Connie Leathers, parade committee chairwoman. The Ancient and Honorable was an artillery company chartered in 1638 in Massachusetts. (The artillery company’s museum is at Faneuil Hall in Boston). The parade has since become an event to express opinions that often lampoon local and national politics, according to Leathers.

“That’s actually part of the fun: People get awarded for having opinions,” Leathers said.

“However, this is not always G-rated,” she added of the parade. “We’re edgier.”

The Journal last year wrote about one parade act that poked fun at a state representative’s proposal to combine several towns into one big town called Westconnaug. A family wore wigs and sashes to look like beauty queens from the six towns and danced to Shania Twain’s tune “Man, I Feel Like A Woman.”

Glocester resident Ken C. Hopkins, a regular parade award winner whose work included a 125-foot-long entry that carried images from Indiana Jones movies, won best float last year. Some 60 floats took part and about 10,000 people attended the 2008 parade, Leathers said.

People can enter floats as late as the day of the parade and they can either register online at www.glocesterri.org or pick up an entry form at Glocester Town Hall, Leathers said. She added that a bucket brigade will go through the crowd to help raise money for next year’s parade. Eighty percent of the town’s budgeted contribution goes to public safety costs, she said, so various fund-raising covers other expenses. There is no admission charge to see the parade and there is no entry fee for floats.

Leathers said there will be more marching bands in this year’s parade. Across from town hall, there will be clowns and vendors. There will not be fireworks this year. Police will start blocking off the parade area between 3:30 and 3:45 p.m.

mmckinne@projo.com