Parades are fun.
There are parades for many reasons–patriotic, historical, or, just for the hell of it. In New Orleans, if there is nothing special about a particular day, that alone is a reason for a parade, party, and—well, you know.
Cheyenne, Wyoming has four parades during the week of “Frontier Days”. The parade route zig zags through its downtown. With horse-drawn wagons, horse drawn floats, and horses with riders, the zigs and zags are on purpose; when a horse gets spooked, it tends to run in the direction it’s facing without turning. The zigs and zags are to provide a place for horses to go without anyone getting in the way and being hurt.
Christmas, of course, is a great time for parades. Every city, town, and village seems to have its own take how parades should be conducted. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Santa’s sleigh was drawn by eight giant (not tiny) crawfish–not crayfish, not crawdads, but crawfish (and them’s good eatin’).
Where I live now, the Christmas parade is an event, and the tradition is for people to stake out their preferred locations. To most people, this means showing up early and grabbing your spot. Here, however, people set up their chairs (often complete with stuffed teddy bears)—not on the day before the parade. Some claim their spots a week before the parade. The hard core stake their claim two weeks before the parade, complete with bent coat hangers to anchor the chairs and zip ties to keep the stuffed toys in place.
The best part is that everyone loves it. No one takes offense.
It’s kind of magic.
I like that.
sfnowak 