One's idea of a parade, I think, is formed when one is a child. As a result, parades one sees as an adult don't quite ever live up to one's idea of the, as it were, Platonic/Ideal parade. When I was a kid, Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey would come to town in Pocatello, Idaho, and provide us with the best parade I had/have ever seen. It had elephants, lions in wheeled cages, horses, a calliope, a band, clowns, and general all round excitement. By comparison, all other parades look pretty tame to me.
Fourth of July parades here in Point Roberts have, in recent years, been on a downhill slope. There were the years when we had a large contingent of white dogs, which was good. And years when we had horses and ponies of various sorts, some with decoration, which was good. And years when we had the Vancouver Police Motorcycle Drill team, which was also good. But last year, and I think the year before that, we have had none of those. There have been some good attempts, but ultimately disappointing. And especially, no music, no bands, no calliopes.
This year, I was sort of inclined to let it pass me by, but at the last minute I grabbed a folding chair and got myself down to the parade's end to see what had passed. And it was a delight, although not Ringling Brothers. It began with an assortment of Point Roberts Fire Dept. equipment, followed by someone in a convertible associated with the movies. And then it got serious.
A marching band from Canada was the first serious entry, and it was either ironic or funny or strange that it was playing 'The Maple Leaf Forever,' for an American Fourth of July Parade, but let that go. It was a band and it played like a marching band and it meant that the parade had music. Throughout the length, other music appeared, including the splendid quintet of bagpipe players (above) whose traditional attire was entirely missing after you got the kilt taken into account. The headgear looks like tukes of some sort, and the sandals/walking shoes with and without socks were pretty daring. But four of the five had paired a kilt with a Hawaiian shirt, perhaps a first for a bagpipe band.
Sterling Bank gave us a float populated with people whose hair and faces were a strange green color reminding one more of moss than money; Neilson's brought us two small Neilson children high up in a fork lift; the Historical Society, PREP, Lily Point Defenders, all got themselves together for a good showing. And the Rose Society brought us some beautiful little Rose Queens smiling and waving.
A lot of individual or small groups of people in costume or out made their way down the street, dressed in unusual attire without entirely clear purpose. More in line with the parade theme (which had to do with the Oscars), there was a Scarecrow, a Dorothy, and a Cowardly Lion celebrating the movie, 'The Wizard of Oz,' and I was so engaged in figuring out whether the lion was my friend Rose that I forgot to take a picture of the trio. It was Rose. The Oscar Mayer wiener company seemed to have offered its support to a number of businesses (in line with the Oscar theme), so that there were a lot of people with mustard covered hot dogs on their heads, or wrapped round their bodies. As well as dogs so enwrapped, which was a tad alarming, as if we were to think about eating these 'hot' dogs.
The Point Roberts lawn mower precision drill team reminded us that power mowers of large size are now ever present. It did, however, look like that drivers might, in general, benefit from a little more pushing of mowers than riding on mowers, but their pleasure at whizzing around on their machines was clearly more about driving mania than about mowing OR about exercise needs. An exquisite demonstration of why it is so hard to get people interested in using less oil.
The Tsawwassen Shriners, who have often appeared in the Point's July 4th parade, were here again, but this time with several floats and without the little, tiny cars. One has to wonder about the Middle Eastern appearance of the group's symbols and whether a dozen old guys in topees with camel illustrated vehicles sporting a kind of Turkish star and sickle/crescent emblem go across the border easily.
All in all, an excellent if somewhat unusual Fourth of July parade. But what else could one hope for or reasonably expect in Point Roberts? Next year, perhaps, elephants? Caged lions?
More pictures posted here.http://www.flickr.com/photos/65924740@N00/?saved=1
