to die defending the freedoms that we Americans hold dear in our hearts. Bless them, each and every one.
Now as a kid the greater meaning of Memorial Day was lost on me. Primarily because whenever Memorial Day came around, there was a parade to be marched in. I started as a baton twirler. That
didn't last very long. A few clonks on the head with the metal baton and not even the sparkly unitard could lure me back into the fold.
Then, it was marching with the girl scouts, the bicentennial bicycle brigade, and riding on the library float. In high school, I was in marching band so every Memorial Day was parade day. I have so many fond memories of being in the parades that to this day I still love them! Weirdo, I know.
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| Parada del Sol - AZ |
In Scottsdale, it's a tad hot for Memorial Day parades, so in February we have the Parada del Sol, the largest horse centric parade in the country, and we attend every year and cheer on all of the war veterans who ride in antique cars or on the back of flatbed trucks. Our boys have marched with the middle school band and the high school band every year for the past six years. It's always a special moment. I love it. Hub not so much (because people) but he's a good sport (mostly) about it.
What about you, Reds? Do you love a parade?
HALLIE EPHRON: I love parades but I hate crowds. You see the problem.
Our town has a Memorial Day parade which my older daughter dreaded because, as flute player in her high school band, she was expected to march to the cemetery and play at the service. I'm afraid the meaning of the event was lost on her as well, especially when it rained. But our beautiful local cemetery (established in 1672) blooms with Veteran's flags on Memorial Day, and on the Boston Common thousands of flags are planted on a hillside. It makes me stop and reflect and, yes, give thanks.
Remember the movie Easter Parade? I remember being so disappointed when I moved to NYC and could actually go to Fifth Avenue on Easter, come to find out that the parade was just a lot of people swanning about in funny hats. Not sure what I was expecting. Maybe Judy Garland swinging down from the top of Rockefeller Center.
RHYS BOWEN: I'm a sucker for parades, for pomp and circumstance in general. My heart quickens at the sound of an approaching marching band. Tears trickle down my cheeks when the graduates march in to the Elgar piece that we know in England as Land of Hope and Glory. But small town parades are my favorite. When we lived in Corte Madera, in Marin County they had a 4th of July parade, decorated bicycles, the mayor in an open topped car, very low key, but everyone knew everyoneI and waved as they went past. My daughter has the same sort of thing in Sonoma.. I think that deep in the American pysche there is a longing for pagentry and lost royalty.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You'll think I'm silly, but parades make me cry. The veterans, all proud and in their uniforms. The marching bands, with the teenagers playing earnestly, and the cacophonous brass, the weird arrangements of popular music morphed into being unidentifiable. I used to be in a band, and I know how hard iti s to march and play at the same time. (I was a majorette, too, briefly, an utter and absolute failure, who the band director assigned to be in the middle of the back row so no one could tell how terrible I was. But I loved the boots.) I grew up in Zionsville, Indiana, and EVERYONE got to march in the Fourth of July parade, seemed like there were more people on the street than in on the sidewalk--brigades of goofy dogs, and the quilting ladies, and the kids with sheep, and there was a group who marched with shopping carts. And endless ponies, and the 4-h exhibitors. And kids pulling little red wagons with whatever in them, usually littler kids. Beauty queens in convertibles, either too hot in the broiling heat or too cold but determined not to cover up their dresses and sashes. And flags, millions of flags.
I still makes me cry. The participation, and the community, and the proud timelessness of it.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Jenn, still giggling over you getting conked in the head with the metal baton... Those things hurt! I had one as a kid, although I was never coordinated enough to march in anything. Didn't play in band, either, which I now really regret. But I LOVE parades, especially when there are horses! And I love high school bands. Those make me teary. However, I don't like standing out in the heat and the sun. But, luckily, our Memorial Day parade should start at my daughter's house and end up passing ours, so hopefully I'll get to stand in the shade--or even take out a folding chair--and watch it coming and going!
LUCY BURDETTE: I'm lucky to live in two towns that love parades--Madison and Key West. Along with other vets, John will be marching in the parade on Monday, which is a smaller, more somber affair with stops to memorialize local heroes. On the fourth of July, all stops are pulled out--small town fun at its best! In Key West, everything is an excuse for a parade and we love them all...
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Small town parades are, without a doubt, the best. For years we've been going to the local Saco/Biddeford Memorial Day Parade (the two towns are "sister cities" divided by the Saco River, whose mills used to provide a living for everyone in the area.) The Saco Middle School Band will march, as will the Biddeford Tigers. The American Legion is out in full force, and local organizations and often a politician or two - marching in a parade seems the very definition of retail politics to me! Antique cars, an antique fire truck, and an antique police car, followed by a real squad car to close out the parade.
Like the rest of you, I'm a watering can when I see Old Glory and the proud old (and not-so-old, these days) veterans marching by. Ross, a vet himself, would always brace and uncover, with his hand over his heart. Thinking about this years' parade without him and with the Sailor on duty in the Persian Gulf - ugh, I get weepy just thinking about it. I'll have to find a red, white and blue handkerchief to bring with me.
All right, Readers, how about you? Are you a parade person or no?
I’m most definitely a parade person . . . growing up, we did all the requisite Scout-parade marching as did our girls.
ReplyDeleteFor years, John and I took the children to the cemetery and we all helped put the flags beside each veteran’s grave; then we’d go back on Memorial Day for the ceremonies. It was a way to say thank you for those who gave so much. Memorial Day parades may make me teary-eyed, but they are always so special . . . .
I don’t remember decorating the graves with flags but I’m sure we must have. Such a somber reminder.
DeleteI can remember going to a local parade a couple of years as a kid, but I have only ever gone to my town's 4th of July parade once. I also went to the Rose Parade in person one year, but I prefer to watch this on the TV every January 1st.
ReplyDeleteThe comfort of your own living room is lovely.
DeleteShalom Reds and fans. I will be at the parade tomorrow morning. I go mostly to keep my flatmate company. Our town, Doylestown, PA, has 3 public high schools. They all have marching complete with drums and majorettes. There is at least one adult band that plays on the flatbed of a truck. The parade has several antique firetrucks and old school police cars. The local corvette clubs has more than a few cars that strut there stuff. The American Legion has a contingent that presents. Antique pickup trucks and other vehicles. One car has two fronts. Old style tractors. Several local charities have groups. Irish step dancers and a theatre company are represented. It takes about an hour. They start at one of the high schools and end at our largest cemetery. Many residents leave town for the long weekend but the parade draws from a wider area and is always well attended. Rain or shine. We expect good weather this morning.
ReplyDeleteLove your description, David. Sounds like a parade even I would enjoy.
DeleteThis sounds like a perfect parade! Have fun!
DeleteI'm right with you all on parades. I got my start as a Camellia Parade princess in the first grade, riding on the royal float in my suburb of Los Angeles which might as well have been a small Midwestern town. (I reprised the role this February riding on the back of a convertible with my fellow princess - 60 years later!) Then it was marching with the girl scouts and high school drill team. Last year a fellow Quaker dressed up as John Greenleaf Whittier and I put on my 1890 Quaker dress and we walked with Amesbury Friends in the town holiday parade.
ReplyDeleteMy former Massachusetts town, and the one where I set the Local Foods Mysteries, has an epic small-town Memorial Day parade. Veterans, equestrians, scouts, ball teams, riding lawnmowers - you name it. Even the moms volleyball team walks in it, showing off their skills. The fire trucks bring up the rear, and at the Training Field, everybody piles on the back and they drive very slowly back the quarter mile to the fire station for free ice cream. Truly epic.
How adorable, Edith! I love that the princess group got back together 60 years later!
DeleteI wish I could post a picture here!
DeleteYes and no. I played violin, so no band experience, but I was in parades growing up with my Girl Scout troop.
ReplyDeleteThe Girl did a couple parades when she was in Brownies. When The Boy was still in Boy Scouts, he would go decorate the graves of local veterans with flags and march in the parade. I still remember how excited he was the year he got to carry the American flag (it was almost twice as tall as he was). The couple years they overlapped, I'd march with the girls and The Hubby (a Boy Scout leader) would go with the boys. Later, when The Girl quit, she and I would go get a doughnut and chai latte from the local bakery and watch the parade.
But I'm a sucker for a high school marching band.
The days, I don't much care for the crowds and I don't like sitting on a curb. Since my kids are no longer participating in any way, I don't see the point of torturing myself.
Ugh, the curb. Say no more.
DeleteThere's nothing like being at a parade when the bands play and you can feel the vibration of the drums in your chest. It gives me chills just to think about them. I remember two parades with particular fondness. The first was a local town Christmas parade and the hospital where I worked wanted to have a group marching in it. We decided we needed to be doing something besides just walking, so we became a kazoo band, because everyone can hum. Unfortunately (and not a surprise) it was SO humid that all the little pieces of tissue paper in the kazoos (that make the funny noise possible) got wet and no sound came out. So we hummed but no one could hear us.
ReplyDeleteThe other parade was July 4 on my first trip to Maine. Booth Bay Harbor had a great parade of little baton twirlers, the Mayor on the back of a car, a school band, pickup trucks and.......the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile! It was fabulous. Everyone waved flags, smiling, greeting one another. That was almost 20 years ago and I still remember it fondly.
You totally leveled up with the weinermobile! LOL! That sounds perfect!
DeleteI like a parade if one happens to go by while I'm in the area, but I can't remember that last time I went to one intentionally!
ReplyDeleteI must have marched in them, as a flute playing kid who was in the high school band from the third grade on. Our school was small, and everyone who played an instrument was conscripted from the moment that first toot or rat-a-tat-tat was heard. So I suppose it was really a school band, yes?
I am of the generation that celebrated Decoration Day, side by side with my grandmother, cutting armloads of lilacs and irises and mock orange and putting them in fruit jars to take to the cemetery. Lots of dead relatives who never fought in a war got their graves decorated that day.
I hope someone places flowers on her grave this morning, so far away in Kansas.
Finta you are making me cry again. Xx
DeleteThat sounds like a lovely tradition, Finta.
DeleteI remember my grandparents calling it Decoration Day, Ann. They would take us down to the old family cemeteries in the country and we would clean and decorate the graves. Here in Texas, folks in rural counties still organize cemetery days in the spring where they do maintenance on the old churchyard cemeteries.
DeleteI have only been to one small town parade.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in Pasadena, within walking distance to the Rose Parade route, I formed the assumption that all parades were supposed to be a large scale, magnificent, though impersonal, production. When we lived in a very tine town in Utah for about a year, I learned about real parades, the type you all have described. I sat on the curb with my then 5 year old son and tears rolled down my face with each marching band. And, the flags!!! All sizes and each and every one was meaningful, representative of a loved one. Now I think the best parades are the up close and personal ones. Sorry Pasadena.
You should have come a couple towns south to Temple City, Lyda! A very small-town parade (see my comment above), still going on today.
DeleteLyda, yes, exactly. You really get a sense of your community in the small town parade. I love them!
DeleteDefinitely a parade person. I was a member of St. Mary marching band in Rutherford NJ. Started out as a gun bearer in the honor guard and graduated to drum majorette. My hometown had parades for everything growing up, high school students used to make floats for the Memorial Day parade that managed to wind through every main street in our mile long town.
ReplyDeleteLike others, I get teary at the passing of Old Glory and the laying of the wreath at the remembrance monolith.
Lovely. There is so much nostalgia in the sound of a marching band.
DeleteI live in a small town where we love our parades. I, too, get teary at the sight of the flags and veterans. Heck, patriotic music sets me off, too! In the summer our high school marching band is allowed to march in street clothes instead of uniforms and alumns are allowed to join the band. I love seeing the college-age kids who still love their band director.
ReplyDeleteThe Memorial Day parade is much more somber and ends at City Hall with a remembrance and wreath-laying ceremony. Yup, more tears, but I love it all.
Marching band kids are something special - and, yes, I’m biased since I have two of them. :)
DeleteI have no kids in the marching band, so I can say without bias that band kids are the best.
DeleteAnd Julia, holding the Sailor and you in our thoughts this morning. It can't be easy to be immensely proud and mom-anxious all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteYes, there must be so many emotions happening for today, Julia! Hugs.
DeleteGrowing up in the Midwest in the 50's and 60's, I got to see lots of parades. And in high school I marched in one with my fellow Red Cross Volunteens (Candy stripers).
ReplyDeleteBut there are far fewer parades in our area now, and I would never go downtown for the annual Reds Opening Day parade. Too many people.
The best parade ever is in Elk Rapids, Michigan every summer. It's old-time cheesy Americana, and although I've only gotten to experience it once, it was grand fun.
Ditto on the Sailor, Julia.
ReplyDeleteThinking of Sailor, Julia. All of us.
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteDid anyone ever see the movie that was the bio pic of John Philip Sousa? I think Clifton Webb played him, but I will check into that. It’s pretty wonderful, actually, and I am going to see if I can find it today.
ReplyDeleteOoh, Stars & Stripes Forever! Love, love, love that march.
DeleteYou need to come to Dallas this July 4, Karen. I know a band. We do a great Stars and Stripes Forever.
DeleteHank, I have seen it. As a kid of 7 or 8 ( and since). I don't think my sister or I ever quite recovered from seeing Robert Wagner as the romantic lead! but now I love the marches just as much or more.
DeleteBest parade I've ever attended: Rose Parade
ReplyDeleteParade I still want to attend: Thanksgiving Parade in NYC
Most fun parade: Chatham, Mass Fourth of July Parade with "Miss Eelgrass" draped in seaweed
Thinking about your sailor, Julia.
I’d love to see the Thanksgiving Day parade!!!
DeleteAs a kid in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, I remember having to march in at least one parade. Memory fails as to which it might've been but I do remember having to do it. I was less than enthused.
ReplyDeleteAs a small kid, whenever there was a parade that my parents took us to, it was a bit more interesting when the people would throw candy out to the spectators.
And I suppose when I was a kid, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade held some draw because of the various character balloons.
Nowadays, I really have no interest in parades. Regardless of why they are being held, I just invariably would rather be doing something else that doesn't require me to stand on the side of a road and watch an assemblage of people and things drive ever so slowly by.
LOL - oh, yes, sometimes it really is a snail’s pace!
DeleteJulia, though I love parades, I am NOT a fan of crowds. Love small town parades. There is something about small town parades.
ReplyDeleteWonderful stories from everyone!
Diana
Diana - small towns are the best!
DeleteIt turns out there isn't a parade in our town today, so I guess I'll have to wait until the 4th of July for that pleasure.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I have to say that I love the way Remembrance Day is celebrated in the UK and in the Commonwealth. November 11th is a very solemn occasion. In England, the nation falls silent when the wreath is laid on the Cenotaph in London. It's very moving. And the wearing of the poppy in the weeks leading up to November 11th is taken very seriously, too.
We're flying our flag, which we only do on commemorative days. In our part of the country, however, people have started leaving their flags up all the time, like decorations. They get dirty and bedraggled, and they are not lit at night. Even in elementary school, and especially in scouting, we learned that the flag should be treated with respect. It should not be used as a display of political affiliation. Rant over, sigh.
I was in London for Remembrance Day years ago. We attended church at St Paul's Cathedral and the service was very moving. I believe I still have my poppy from back then too.
DeletePerfectly said, Debs!
DeleteI was in too many parades to count while participating in marching band in junior high, high school and college. So much fun! Then all three of my daughters were in marching band as well. Here in Cheyenne, WY we have Cheyenne Frontier Days the last full week of July. What an excuse to party! We have four parades, rodeos every day, concerts every night, free pancake breakfasts that feed thousands in Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and much more. Many veteran and active military groups March in the parades, as well as local and far away marching bands. Not to mention rodeo queens from as far away as Australia. It's a fun and busy week for everyone who stays in town. Many locals choose to take their annual vacation during that week. Tee hee!
ReplyDeleteI know about the Cheyenne Frontier Days Parade. There's a competition for the bands that march there and to be chosen to march is a big, nationally recognized honor in the band world.
DeleteOh, I want to go!!!
DeleteI'm like Hallie, loving the parades but not necessarily the crowds. And, like Hank, I can get a little teary-eyed at the parades honoring those who have served our country. I'm not attending anything this Memorial Day, but my husband helped put out flags on Friday and today is with a couple of his fellow veterans at a service and a luncheon. I'm so grateful for those who have sacrificed for our country. One of the most moving experiences I've had is visiting Arlington National Cemetery, looking out across all those grave markers and feeling the impact of sacrifice from those who died and those they left behind.
ReplyDeleteArlington is breathtaking. I’ll never forget seeing it or feeling what it means to lose so many lives.
DeleteI love parades and I got weepy just reading about these. We attended when we lived in small towns. Those parades are the best! I've been to very few here in Houston: crowds and heat. Since we moved back, one rodeo parade and several art car parades until it got to be too much. When we lived in Minnesota there was a boat parade on our lake every 4th of July. That was a lot of fun. Funniest parade? 4th of July in Lubbock Texas back in the early 80s. There was a fleet of lowriders that had me howling when they started bouncing. And a local radio station handed out cheapie transistor radios to anyone who would march in their group and play music on that one station as their accompaniment. See? You don't have to have a marching band!
ReplyDeleteLove the radio idea! Ha!
DeleteJust reading these comments causes tears. I know the Scouts have spent their weekend lining the drives of the cemetery with flags for annual commemoration. Some years, we have had a fly over from Travis. I tend avoid that area of town, way to crowded.
ReplyDeleteRhys, did you and yours ever get to The Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Festival when you lived in Marin county? That's the big parade in Santa Rosa. Every May - rain or shine. I spent my childhood across the street from Burbank's Home as the parade passed.... Color Guard, Fire, Police, Sheriff departments, the Grand Marshall, dignitaries, bands, a few floats pulled by tractors or trucks. The parade always ended with horses. My sophomore year my high school band joined Sheriff's Department's Bagpipe Band to lead the parade, our Vice Principal was part of the band. I always looked for the Campion Precision Drill group, they were so impressive. I need to get a new flag holder for the apartment, I miss flying my flag.
Oh, I love bagpipes!
DeleteI grew up in a tiny town that had a big band program, and we had the best small-town July 4 parades. Lots of homemade floats (hay wagons with bunting) featuring all the local ladies clubs with their flowers or quilts or whatever on display, and streamer-bedecked bicycles zooming all around. The band would march into view, and the memories still make me misty-eyed.
ReplyDeleteThen I moved to a slightly larger town in Texas, where they had the rodeo parade in mid-June and the Peach Festival parade in mid-July, and blew off July 4 entirely, until this one year when somebody at the Chamber of Commerce decided we probably ought to make note of the fact that we did actually belong to that larger national entity that celebrated independence from England, not Mexico. I worked for the county hospital then, and was happy to get together a float. It wasn't until the actual line-up for the parade that I realized the high school band was not marching? No band? Unheard of! "MY band is marching today," I told everybody who would listen. "I guarantee you, my high school band is marching somewhere today."
And it was. When I got home that night I caught a story on a national news broadcast following President George H. W. Bush celebrating an old-fashioned small-town July 4 parade. There, proudly passing the reviewing stand, was the Willard High School Marching Tiger Band. My band not only marched, it marched for the president of the United States.
In years since, both "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Land of Hope and Glory" (Pomp and Circumstance March #2, for those of you who are not British) have become a regular part of my life in the summer. I cannot tell you how many of my musician friends love the graduation gigs, but get so, so tired of playing that last part of P&C2 over and over again.
Now, a couple of questions: How many Reds played in the band? What did you play? Do you think band was important in shaping the adults you became? I played clarinet.
No band, I was in the chorus so no marching in parades.
DeleteGigi, my years of marching band were mostly in Texas also. Started in Ranger, then Moore, OK, then Athens, Pleasanton and East Texas State University (now Texas A&M at Commerce). Us Texans take band seriously and so does my adopted state of Wyoming.
DeleteI was in percussion just like my sons! Band gave me discipline and a place to belong. An invaluable experience!
DeleteYes, love parades--and hate the crowds too! LOL! Here is link to my blog post on the topic: http://www.lizboeger.com/ Hope you stop by and leave a comment! Be Well!
ReplyDeleteI’ll check it out, Liz!
ReplyDelete