When “I Love a
Parade" was composed in 1931 I imagine that its title well expressed the
sentiment of many folks who didn’t have cool technology to play with in the air
conditioned comfort of their living rooms.
Turning out to watch and to wave at other people walking or riding in
formation continues to be a thing in some municipalities, especially small ones
that will use a parade to kick off some local event be it the opening of Little
League season, a shindig of some sort, or the beloved tradition of many a
volunteer fire station, the block party.
And, of course, there are the holiday parades in the big cities with
commercial sponsors, and the patriotic varieties that continue to be a
tradition in many places.
As with too many things
in which the pleasure faded as I grew up parades became more of a nuisance to
me as time went by. By high school
during which which I had to lug and play the Sousaphone in countless parades
including a L--O--N--G one in Philadelphia in '76 on a day that was about 120 degrees
Fahrenheit in the shade (I exaggerate slightly for effect.) I’d become jaded to
whatever charm might have been in any parade when I was a little kid. For many of my adult years parades seemed to
accomplish little more than blocking off main arteries within whatever towns or
podunks I'd happen to be traveling through and delaying my progress in getting
to wherever I might have been heading.
They came, in my mind, to make much ado about nothing* and I lost
whatever ability I might have once had to squeeze some degree of enjoyment from
watching local dignitaries of much self-touted importance waving from atop the
deck of convertible models of sports or luxury cars and big fire fighting
equipment rolling by.
With that preface,
imagine me saying, “Yes!" when other members of our local loosely knit
scooter group asked if I’d like to ride my scooter in a parade along the main
street in their hometown of Exeter, PA, a small borough across the Susquehanna
River and a few miles north. Because our
group is small and doesn’t often host events like scooter rallies or big group
rides (And I’m not criticizing, because I’m not the sort to roll up my sleeves
and pronounce, "Let’s do this!") I do like to participate when we
manage to find worthy opportunities to ride together, even if it’s for a parade
that would certainly close off Wyoming Avenue in Exeter, a main route through
the west side, for an hour or so. The
occasion of the parade was to be the start of the Exeter block party which
they're hoping will become an annual tradition, I believe.
Old men with band instruments perform on a float. If I'd kept up the tuba I might have been one of them.
We met up at the home of
the family that asked if I’d join them and after a while rode in formation to
the staging area for the parade where we sweated in buckets while waiting for
the whistle that I imagined would start the line moving. Thank God for the fire trucks parked nearby
in the shadows of which we found some relief from the unrelenting sun that
threatened to bake us. It was a nice
opportunity, though, to catch up on things that had been going on since we last
got together. Though I can’t say I felt
any "excitement" at the thought of being in the parade as I did when
I was a Cub Scout and we marched in one, there was a certain type of it in the
air and I can safely say that I participated in it at least vicariously through
the others around me who seemed to be taking delight in the chance to pass in
formation before our audience already assembling on the sidewalks along the
route.
I enjoyed riding in a group again with some scooter friends and even though it’s not easy to talk
to other riders when we’re moving there is a unique connection and camaraderie
that’s felt as we scoot along.
Admittedly I paid more attention to the high school cheerleaders
directly in front of our group than to whomever lined the roadway to watch us
go by because with a lot of starting and stopping, I didn’t want to achieve
local notoriety by running over a kid with pom poms. I’d been somewhat worried about the heat gauge on my bike because
at slow speeds and lots of idling bikes tend to run on the hot side and it was
a problem with my radiator last summer that had the Piaggio in the shop from
April through August. Thankfully the
parade didn’t stress the system and the fan and radiator did their jobs nicely
to keep me rolling along like the caissons in yet another parade song.
Lunchtime
is fast approaching so here’s as good a place as any to put this post to
rest. Yes, I did, after all, find some
delight in being in a parade again! The
scooter has afforded me varieties of pleasant experiences I'd not otherwise
have had over the past 11 years so I'm still very grateful for having seen the word,
"Scooter," used as an example in a tutorial blog tag, remembering my Uncle
Andy giving me a ride on a scooter when I was about five years old, and having
my brain immediately jump on the subsequent thought of, “I want a scooter!”
There I am on the right leading the scooter pack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I say parades came to be much ado about nothing I do not mean to imply that our beloved war heroes shouldn't be honored. I just fail to see how marching the current members of the Armed Forces and the equipment of war through the streets gives them the rich honor they deserve.
