I thought parades were for kids, but they're not. If parades were truly for the children, they would consist solely of clowns pouring buckets of candy in the gutters while a midget on horseback released clusters of helium balloons into the sky. Kids don't care about marching bands and Miss Hometown candidates. At least mine don't.
Tonight the Cokato Corn Carnival got underway with the traditional small-town parade. It's an excellent display; lots of tractors, fire and rescue trucks, beauty queens, and millions of Tootsie Rolls. The boys and I parked ourselves in front of the local pizza joint and took in the sights. And about two pounds of candy.
I wish I had brought my camera. So much fodder...so little time. The one that truly got away: a picture of a pick-up truck with members of the Red Hat Society stuffed in the back. The lady with the oxygen tube just made the scene for me.
I wish I could have had a picture of the local Democratic and Republican candidates for our MN House District. The Democrat is a physician. He was clean cut and nicely dressed. The Republican (incumbent) needed a hair cut and a treadmill. If they weren't marching with party banners, I might have found myself wishing the challenger good luck on his re-election.
The guy behind us had it all straight. When the Democrats came by, he started shouting, "Go Bush! Four more years! Go George!"
"How fortunate for us," I whispered to The Senator, "that we landed in the right cheering section."
When the Republicans came by, we clapped and shouted and nearly got a hug from the guy behind us.
We didn't get to watch the entire parade. The Governor had a meltdown when I wouldn't let him dance in the path of an on-coming John Deere. I strapped him into the stroller and wheeled him three blocks to our car. He was screaming the entire time. His list of public places I'm willing to take him to just gets shorter and shorter all the time.
Tomorrow and Wednesday the Corn Carnival continues with the rides, the games, the coronation of Miss Cokato, and all the free corn-on-the-cob you can eat.
Never has a town been so collectively regular as the day after the Corn Carnival ends.
Posted by Cathy at August 9, 2004 11:16 PM