“Hit by penny candy, amused by a mouse, hit by a runaway stroller …”
Set those words to some country or folk tune and you have three highlights of my 35 years of covering community parades.
The Jolly Rancher nearly took out my eye in Amboy, Wash., a giant mouse mascot 28 years ago still makes my wife, Lorre, and I laugh at the memory, and once in Port Townsend, Wash., a woman struggling to push her adorned stroller while being PULLED by a couple of adorned dogs accidentally let go of the stroller and it ran over my foot and bashed my knee. Me and the kid were okay.
I mention these things because after having covered or watched dozens of parades over the years, I had the novel experience Monday of riding in the parade, and it was great fun.
You really can see from a 10-foot perspective how happy people are to be watching the parade (and, frankly, a few look pretty bored or blasé). I enjoyed seeing all the faces; some I knew, others just calling out friendly greetings.
It helped restore my full appreciation of what the July 4 parade represents: true community. I confess that I’d become a little jaded in recent years to the parade; this attitude is more about me than the parade, for the event has remained a steadfast community delight, and grown and improved in the past 5-10 years under the guidance of Lion Tom Yates and friends. That Lions have taken on organizing Hood River’s annual Independence Day festivities is just one of their grand gifts to us all.
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I photographed the Kollas-Cranmer Run from Odell to Jackson Park Monday morning, drove to the finish line just ahead of the parade’s beginning, caught a photo and quotes from the three top finishers (page A7) and then drove back to the Heights and parked the car at my house, four blocks off the parade route.
I knew that this parade was one of the better-attended in years, based on the large number of cars lining the streets near my house.
I made my way to 12th, where the color guard was leading the way accompanied by bagpipes and local law enforcement, and walked south, against the parade route, to find my flatbed: the one promoting Plays for Non-Profits’ productions of “Much Ado About Nothing,” and “Oklahoma!” (details on page B1).
On board were Edward McNair, Kim Robichaud, Emelie Pennington-Davis, David Dye, and Lisa Roth, with Peter Dallman behind the wheel. Walking alongside were Dave Adams and Kathleen Morrow, doing the hard work of greeting the crowd directly and handing out leaflets.
I stood and waved, gripping an arbor in the gusty wind, a few times getting up the nerve to call out “’Much Ado’ opening Thursday, ’Oklahoma!’ in August!” — the best short-hand I could think to shout. People called out greetings, including “I love Shakespeare!” and “Oklahoma is one of my favorites!” — that and “Sing for us!” And on that note something pretty special happened later in the parade, one of two delightful moments to report in which the crowd truly connected with the floats going by.
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The first one happened by the hospital, when the Gorge Roller Girls’ go-cart stalled and a spectator called out, “Is there a go-cart doctor in the house?” Reporter Trisha Walker said that a man emerged from the eight-deep crowd and pulled on the starter cord, and the engine roared. “He answered the call,” Walker noted. The crowd went wild.
Then the go-cart went quiet again. The crowd groaned. The man leaned down and took a closer look, wiggled a whatzit and twisted a thing-a-ma-jig (my terms, not Trisha’s) and in less than a minute, the go-cart was off and running. Suddenly the mystery man was the most popular guy on the parade route.
It was at about that same location that Edward McNair, who has the big role of cowboy Curly in “Oklahoma!” seized a quiet moment and began acapella booming “Oh What A Beautiful Morning/oh what a beautiful day …” the Rodgers-and-Hammerstein classic from the musical, and instantly 20 people in the crowd sang in response, “I’ve got wonderful f-e-e-e-l-ling everything’s going my way!”
Too bad the trailer had to move on. We might have gotten into “Farmer and the Cowman” or even “Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair.” Yes, that one’s from another musical, but the crowd seemed to have a repertoire.
And for a wonderful moment, we had a rapport, and I get now why some people walk or ride in the parade every year.
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