A Good Parade

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.

Later on, there was a group of cymbalist/drums from a Canadian Chinese Benevolent Society, which also included a substantial group of older, staid but smiling men in suits, ladies in matching vests and pants who were doing some kind of dancing or drill team work, and a couple of dragons.  All to the good, though not particularly Fourth of July-ish.  But certainly benevolent.

Lots of people walking in various groups passed by, including an especially charming appearance by a faux Queen Elizabeth wishing the colonies good luck.  She was accompanied by two of her corgies and one of her hats.  

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

July 4 Parade, Part II

Last year’s July 4th parade in Point Roberts was something of a disappointment. Usually, the parade is organized by the local Chamber of Commerce, which is a relatively small group because we have relatively little commerce that wants to be organized in this way. And last year, the relatively small membership of the Chamber of Commerce somewhat disintegrated just as it was about to get the parade organized. So, although one stalwart member delivered the parade in time, it was a little short on content.

That meant that this year’s parade would have to be either better or worse; no way it could remain at the dismal level it attained last year. Fortunately, the Chamber underwent some kind of revivification this past year and word was out, long before July 4, that the parade trend was definitely up, and even a big up. My idea of a very successful parade includes lots of kids on decorated bicycles, music that is loud (bands are the best, of course), groups that are funny, horses with decorated riders, dogs, jugglers, stilt walkers, and a few knock out decorated floats. People of some vague importance sitting in cars waving desultorily (or even aggressively) and public agency vehicles fail to draw my interest. You can’t make a parade out of nothing.

So, on Saturday at noon, I walked about a mile to the point at which the parade comes closest to me to see what we got. (Note that I do nothing whatsoever to make this parade better or even possible.) As it happens, my spot is at the end of the parade, at the corner of Tyee and APA Road. It takes me about 25 minutes to get there and it takes the parade (which begins at noon) about a half hour to get there. I arrived in plenty of time, along with lots of other people, all of us in the bright, hot sun, sitting mostly on the curb. There were about 40 cars parked along APA which was a sign of a very good turnout.

And I waited for the sound of the Vancouver Police Motorcycle Drill Team which, up until last year, had always begun the parade. But no motorcycles were heard. Not much of anything was heard. Within ten minutes, however, the first float turned the corner of Gulf and Tyee and headed toward us. It was the Shriners’ float. These are Canadian Shriners because I’m pretty sure we don’t have any in P.R. and if they have them in Bellingham, I doubt if they’d come up here for a parade. These Shriners are usually in our July 4 Parade (which is good of them since it isn’t their holiday) and sometimes they bring their little cars and sometimes they bring their calliope and play music. But this year’s Shriners look as if they’ve moved on past both little car driving and calliope playing. These guys are getting on, like WWII veterans who sell poppies in the fall in Remembrance of WWI. Although one appreciates them, it didn’t really seem like a great beginning for a July 4 parade: a bunch of old Canadian guys with funny hats sitting in front of a totem pole.

They were followed by the Grand Marshall, who was/is, I am told, the star of a TV show that may well be called Stargate. Having no TV, I am in no position to speak to his presentation, but nice of him to come in any case. He wore black with black sunglasses and had a woman and child with him in his black convertible.

From then on, it was not a disaster, but neither was it a blazing success. The very highest point of parade amusement—and a high point it was--came with the work of the Precision Lawn Mower Drill Team (which, for some reason was billed as the Precision Lawn AND Drill Team), a group that easily duplicated many of the best moves of the Vancouver Police Motorcycle Precision Drill Team, although at a much slower speed and with a great deal more aluminum foil. (It must be noted that with space travel as a parade theme, virtually every parade participant was decked out in several rolls of aluminum foil: aluminum foil: the new crepe paper.)

Music was brought by a couple with a keyboard and another instrument, whose work or something is to be found at spacefantasymusic.com, according to their float sign, but there does not seem to be any there there on the web. An additional music entry was a 5-person kazoo band. They looked unhappy to be there, but perhaps they were just lonely. Five people is just not enough for a kazoo band.

Eventually, an 18-wheel truck took about ten minutes turning the corner of Gulf and lumbered ever so slowly down to the end: PR Auto Freight services, bringing us (more) aluminum foil and packages to and from space, I guess. And then nothing. My near viewers and I stand around, trying to figure out what is happening. But nothing is happening, even though this is a very unsatisfactory parade conclusion. We are disappointed (and people express their disappointment audibly). Eventually, and slowly, we disperse, sorry to think that it has ended like this, and I with the other 75 or so folks near me disband and return to our cars and homes.

Twenty minutes later, as I am getting close to home, I am passed by a float that says something like “Martian Fantasy Garden.” I had not seen this float in the parade I watched, and it slowly dawned on me that there had been more parade than I—or my co-viewers--had seen. The garden float was superb. Perhaps the organizers had saved all the best for the end? I called around and heard about a number of great entries at the end, including the kids on bicycles, the horses, the dogs, a funny group (the Red Hat Ladies as ‘Pigs in Space’) and the beautiful Garden Club float (Martian Garden Party). Well, there wasn’t a band, but ‘man’s reach must exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?” as Robert Browning, I think, said about his own July 4th parade experience (or some other experience). The word is that Delta Cable wanted to interview everybody so there were big slowdowns because of that. I guess next time, they need somebody dressed like Porky Pig to come at the very end with a sign that says, “That’s All Folks!”

Pictures are to be seen here. Thanks to friends with more sense than I had for the pictures of the things I didn't see, and thanks to the Chamber of Commerce for their good work. Next year, even better, I’m sure. And I’ll try to be a better viewer, too.

The Parade, Part I

There’s the July 4th Parade and what it’s about abstractly and there’s the July 4th Parade and what it’s about practically, tangibly maybe. First the one, then the other. The other is the one with all the pictures.

But there’s a picture for the abstract meaning of the parade, too. Here is a guy who is what the parade is about for me. He marched in the parade, all alone, with the same sign last year, too. People where I was standing, at the end of the parade line, cheered him on some last year. Last year, we were distraught about Bush and his war and wanted it over. We were pretty enthusiastic about Obama, I guess, and thought if only he won the presidential election, that war would be over. I was struck that no one was marching with him last year, but happy to hear encouragement, including mine, from the onlookers. Right, we were thinking, let’s end that war.

But now it’s this year. Same guy, same sign, same war. I was standing in the same place, right at the end of the parade. He was still alone, but this year, other than me, no one called out with approval to him from among the many people who lined the sidewalk at APA and Tyee. That war is over, I guess. Obama ended it, must have, sometime when I wasn’t watching.

But this year, I was ready to go out and walk with him if only we weren’t at the end of the parade. Whoever you are (and why don’t I know who the lone anti-war marcher is here in this little place?), get in touch with me next year if this issue still has to be addressed and I’ll get my own sign, just like yours, and walk with you, here in my own community, and hope my neighbors, too, will endorse supporting the troops by ending the war.

This guy’s willingness to get up and say/stand behind what he thinks is what the parade is about in the first sense. About our caring enough to object to government actions that we think are wrong. Still not such a popular idea in a lot of other places, and that alone gave meaning to this July 4 parade to me. But maybe we all should cheer him—on just this occasion, at least--for his willingness to speak out, to make manifestly real what the 4th of July is about.

Another view of this matter (i.e., ending the war) is expressed here by The Medium Lobster.

Parading Around

Noon today saw the beginning of the however many year’s annual Point Roberts’ Fourth of July Parade. The sky was blue, the air was plenty warm enough, and a goodly crowd of people were settled on their portable chairs and the curbs and sidewalks over the maybe 5-block parade route (up Gulf Road and then right on Tyee to APA Road). Many kids mushing about, in eager anticipation of the candy that will be flung toward them by the parade participants. Their eagerness for that candy makes it seem as if this was the only day of the year that they were allowed to have candy, although we know that is not so.

The parade always begins with the Vancouver RCMP motorcycle drill team. But this year, it didn’t. The Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the parade, has had the misfortune to misplace virtually all its members in recent months, making the parade and accompanying beach festivities something of a hard go. As a result, the lone remaining member cancelled the beach festivities and did the best possible with getting the parade to happen. So, it was a disappointment, but Heather is to be much praised for getting it to happen at all, I think. No parade would have been a real disappointment. Another thing to work on for next, year, I guess.

So, no RCMP carrying ons, no stilt walker, no music of any kind, no white dog parade, no decorated horses and riders. But, there were other things: the Fire Department with its treasured array of vehicles; bikers from the Red Hat group with umbrellas; a truly funny cadre of imprecision bicycle drill team members, in various and uncoordinated costumes; a tiny, tiny horse walked along by one of my quilting students who is, herself, not very tall; a man walking with a small sign opposing the war (we cheered him quite a bit to, I think, the consternation of our parade watching neighbors); a number of vintage cars from different vintages, with local people known to be local people riding, waving, throwing candy. The Shriners came down from Canada with their truck, but without either their organ music or their tiny cars or bikes, so we had a Canadian flag there, too. A few floats from the local businesses, throwing more candy, sporting more or fewer flags. Pictures here.

It was all right and an adequate celebratory parade. By comparison with other years, less. But that’s going to be true half the time, anyway. Thanks, Heather; and thanks to all the people who walked and rode and decorated. You made sure we had a Fourth of July Parade to remember in 2008. So much better than remembering 2008 as, well, the year we didn’t have a parade.

Patriotism Week, On and On!

Today, July 1, is Canada Day in Canada; but last week, on June 24, it was also Canada Day in Canada. That’s the day that Quebecers and perhaps Francophones more generally celebrate Canada Day by celebrating Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (John the Baptist), and also for those of a mind, by celebrating the summer solstice a few days earlier, just to be genuinely ecumenical, I guess, according to the Canadian Heritage homepage .

The Globe and Mail is celebrating Canada Day today on its front pages by noting that the the B.C. government has increased gas taxes by 2.34 cents as of today, bringing the local prices to $1.52/liter (which is to say over $6 for four liters which is a little more than a U.S. gallon). It is also pointing out that Prime Minister Steven Harper once again apologized to the First Nations people for having forced all their children to go to residential schools, where they were very badly treated, in the early 20th century. The idea was that by separating them from their parents and putting them in government-run and religious-run residential schools, it would be possible to integrate them into Canadian society more effectively. I suppose it might have worked but there was a substantial amount of physical and sexual abuse, which is bound to ruin a lot of hopes. So, this past month, Prime Minister Harper issued a formal apology, and today he did a little more of it.

I’m not sure this is what is meant by Canadian patriotism, but it is consistent with the country’s sense of responsibility about taxing gas to make the price of gas reflect its real costs to the society, and about trying to do right—albeit often ineffectively or downright badly--by the people they displaced when the Canadians decided it was their own country and not that of the First Nations, and about accommodating its multicultural realities, even if it means including the Wiccans.

By Friday, of course, we will be moving on to U.S. patriotism. Although actually we seem to have our heads full of it already with General Wesley Clark’s scandalous suggestion that having been shot down in a plane and becoming a prisoner of war was not a particular qualification for being president. Was he talking about John McCain? Well I guess so. And did anybody ever think that having been a prisoner of war meant you’d be a good U.S. president? These days, it’s hard to imagine what would qualify you to be president, other than being related to some other president. I wonder what Amy Carter is doing? Somebody ought to stuff a sock in cable TV if this nonsense about John McCain’s patriotism being questioned by Wesley Clark is going to keep being repeated.

I hope that by Friday, we might be able to remember that of all the freedoms that we are celebrating on July 4th, the first of them is Freedom of Speech. Wes Clark can say what he wants, but if he is to be criticized for it, then it ought to be for what he actually did say, rather than for what the Fox and CNN hysterics would like him to have said in order to justify their ‘oh my god, the sky is falling’ performances. Maybe Fox people think that being a prisoner of war is a TERRIFIC qualification for being the president of the U.S. They are surely free to say so, but, of course, we would all laugh at them if they did. That idea is just silly. On the other hand, being a prisoner of war who endured torture might be the perfect qualification for a presidential candidate.

Off to the Races

The July 4th holiday is a big time in Point Roberts. There’s a wonderful, old-timey kind of parade with a kind of corny theme (this year it’s ‘it’s a small world,’ of course). The Vancouver RCMP motorcycle precision drill team comes down and races around in figure eights for our amusement/amazement. The Shriners from Ladner, B.C., drive down in their calliope truck (and occasionally with their tiny cars), sporting their fezzes. The local businesses and groups all get together some kind of float: some of them pretty minimal but others very elaborate. Town dignitaries drum up an old car or a convertible and wave to us, while kids race around grabbing candy from whoever is throwing it; grabbing as if they were starving for candy, I might add, though that is not likely to be the case.

For my taste (an old-timey one, for sure), there is not enough music: no marching bands struggling to play on key while marching. No baton twirlers, though there has been a stilt walker the last couple of years. There are horses, some decorated; there are kids riding decorated bicycles. And, perhaps most impressive, there are a herd of white samoyeds that belong to different people but who march—or at least trot--in the parade as a group.

After the parade, there is food, music, and arts and crafts on the beach, and the evening then offers dinners and barbecues at the local eating spots, but no fire works in recent years. And we all hope for at least a day without rain which is usually a wish easily granted in July.

This year, however, the 4th will be followed by the 6th of July, an event at least as good as the parade and maybe even better though with a shorter history. This year, on July 6th at 11 a.m., we will have the return to Point Roberts of the International Belt Sander Drag Races. Lorne Nielson (of Nielson’s Hardware on the Point) apparently invented this activity in 1989, but eventually it became such a successful event that the international race had to move around to other towns, states, countries, so we haven’t seen it here for maybe five years.

In a belt sander race, electric (corded) belt sanders race one another. Some of them are souped up a lot, some of them are decorated a lot. They run, as I recall, two at a time in parallel wooden ramps, and it goes on for hours. Everybody standing about cheers and yells and generally carries on, but I think there is neither on-track nor off-track betting. Anyway, the sport may be Point Roberts’ second greatest claim to fame (the first, of course, being our location), but location and event are equally odd, surely. Come visit on July 6, see the sanders go! But if you can’t, check out the race nearest you. Pictures and instructions included.