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Love a Parade Posting Date: Aug 31 2008 11:22AM On the hierarchy of amusements, where exactly does the parade rank? Historically at least, it occupies a distinguished position. Back in the day, there was so little to do that a fun day out standing at the side of the road and watching people go by. Then one day, the dudes at the roadside put a name to their non-activity so it would sound more cool. Thus, the parade was born. The parade was an instant hit if for no other reason than it proved to be a lot easier to get girls by asking, “Wanna go to a parade?” than it was asking, “Hey, wanna go stand at the side of the road and watch the stuff that goes by?”
Also back in the day, the parade had a practical purpose as well. Before helicopters and trains and amphibious hovercraft, military forces had to walk to everywhere, effectively creating a parade every time they moved from A to B. The Romans were big on this.
Then there was the tradition of the ticker-tape parade which really has no contemporary equivalent. The closest thing I could imagine would be if instead of putting my recycling at the end of the driveway on Thursday morning, I ran to the roof with it and waited for, let’s say, Tom Hanks to ride by in a convertible and then I dumped a week’s worth of ripped-up Globe and Mails on his head.
Now, much like we have gift-giving holidays (Christmas, Valentine’s Day), candy-getting holidays (Hallowe’en, Easter) and eating/drinking holidays (Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve), we also have parade holidays. Parade holidays apparently include Christmas, or at least the version of Christmas that happens in November; significant football games like the Grey Cup and the Rose Bowl; and Labour Day.
Most parades feature a little eye-candy like floating cartoon characters, beauty queens on flatbed trucks, or giant vegetables made of flower petals. Throw in a marching band or two and you’ve got the quintessential modern parade. And then there’s the Labour Day parade. The Labour Day parade features workers wandering the streets in large packs. There is, I understand, a tradition of brotherhood manifested in the columns of marching labourers, but would it kill them to pick a Labour Queen and put her on their shoulders? Could they not inflate a giant effigy of Jimmy Hoffa and let him waft his way through the downtown core? Perhaps they could build a massive acorn squash out of safety goggles and collective agreements.
The other curious parade is the one that inevitably accompanies every local festival of note. The fall – kicked off by Labour Day (coincidence?) – is the prime time for these festivals which are almost always named after a food of some kind: Peach Festival, Apple Butter Cheese Festival, Cranberry Festival, Grape and Wine Festival, Strawberry Festival, and Pumpkinfest. If you live in a town without its own fall festival, you better look around for the nearest food and make up a damn festival or you’ll get left behind. Thank goodness my town already has the Cactus Festival because otherwise, next year I would be the chairman of the inaugural Oreofest.
The parades usually include a couple of marching bands (nice), one or two local dance troupes (usually walking more than dancing, which really downplays the whole dancing angle), a random menagerie of smaller-than-normal barnyard animals, at least two local politicians, a pickup truck carrying cute girls for no apparent reason, a truck shaped like a boat or a sausage, and a bunch of local merchants driving around in Pontiac Sunfires towing trailers behind them that hold their small children and racks of clearance items.
When I organize the first-ever Oreofest, I’m taking the parade in a whole new direction. You’re going to see something special. I’ll replace all truck and car wheels with oversized Oreos. We will have giant helium-filled Oreos wafting over the town and diving into giant vats of cold milk, and the streets will be paved in Oreo crumbs held in place by Oreo filling.
You’ll want to stand by the side of the road and watch it all go by, just like the old days. |
