Al Rush has been the independent sort his whole life. It’s clear from the stories of his childhood in Massachusetts, where he worked as a pin-setter in a bowling alley and sometimes hitched a ride to Boston to see the Red Sox play —and from his present-day lifestyle of doing what he wants, when he wants, but regularly volunteering at Carnation’s Hopelink food bank, just because — that he’s always done things his own way.

So it’s a good thing that the Carnation Fourth of July parade grand marshal has only a few official responsibilities.

“I just have to sit in the car and look pretty,” said the 91-year-old Carnation man who will lead the parade for Carnation’s Fourth of July celebration Saturday. Then he laughs and asks, “I don’t have to make a speech, do I?”

No speech is required, but if one was, it would certainly be worth a listen. Rush has been through some of the biggest moments in this country’s history, and was barely into his teen years for some of them.

Take his early adventures in hitchhiking, sometimes to get to work, and sometimes to get to a Red Sox game, 40 miles away. It held few terrors for Rush, then a red-headed teenager, to get into a car with a stranger, but he said “the most dangerous ride I ever had in my life was on a motorcycle!”

His hitchhiking was even less scary for his parents. “I just told them I was going to the ball game,” he recalled. “They didn’t know I was hitchhiking.”

He loved baseball, and used to listen to the Red Sox games on the radio when he couldn’t catch a ride to see them in person.

With his gift for understatement, Rush said, “They had a solid team… the first baseman was Jimmie Foxx — they called him double X — and there was Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio — he’s Joe’s brother — and Ted Williams.”

He laughs at the thought that he got to see some of the most famous players in the world, and at the idea of asking for their autographs.

“No, we didn’t do that, back then,” he said.

As a young man, Rush joined the Navy, like his father. He served in the Pacific theatre during World War II and the Korean War for a total of almost four years. When he came back to the U.S., it was to Seattle, where he met his first wife, June, who completely changed his life.

“We met at a dance in Seattle, that she went to with her aunt and uncle,” he said. “She was a nice redhead.” When he was released from the Navy, he went home to tell his parents he was moving to Seattle, and marrying June, then he did. They were married for 20 years, and had 12 children together.

In 1963, the family relocated to Carnation

After the Navy, Rush worked for Weyerhaueser, in the planer mill. It wasn’t so dangerous, he said, “You just had to watch what you were doing.”

He also worked the pool tables at Pete’s Club, where he belonged to a league for about 20 years. He’d gotten pretty good at pool since his youth at the bowling alley and pool hall, he said, but gave it up when he decided it was time to quit smoking and drinking — all on the same day.

He sounds a little wistful when he talks about pool, but says he doesn’t miss smoking or drinking, now.

“It was kind of rough for a while,” he admitted. “They said I couldn’t do it, all at once, but I proved them all wrong.”

After June’s death in the ‘60s, he left Weyerhaueser to take care of his children, still very young. He returned to work in the ‘70s and retired in the mid’80s, but by then, he’d already found a way to fill his days, volunteering at the food bank.

He’d also remarried, and “the wife went to the food bank, because she wanted to volunteer, so I went with her.”

Three decades later, that’s all the explanation he needs, or offers, for his long commitment to the food bank.

Rush also keeps pretty busy with trips to the Sno-Valley Senior Center, “about every day,” and visiting his son, Bill, in Carnation, to “goof around.”

He wasn’t so sure about accepting the title of grand marshal, he said, “but everybody said you’ve got to do it,” so he did, but in his own way.

Rush leads the grand parade for the Carnation Fourth of July Saturday, at 11 a.m.

Al Rush, as a young Navy man.