“I just want to be your firecracker”*
by chuckofish
The OM used to belong to a fraternal organization that was responsible for putting on the annual flyover 4th of July parade here in town. He was involved for years in the float department and so our daughters were shanghaied into dressing up in embarrassing costumes and riding on the floats.
One year daughter #1 was Tinkerbell on the Peter Pan float.
In comparison, daughter #2 got away easy dressing up as a hillbilly gal. I have pictures**, but in typical fashion, I am unable to put my hands on them.
I never went to the parade. There is nothing I hate more than getting up in the pre-dawn hours to park God-knows-where to secure a place amidst a large crowd of strangers to watch a parade downtown.
Since it was the OM’s thing, I let him go with it and have father-daughter bonding time. (I did go down to the “den” with respective daughters to get them fitted in their costumes.)
Anyway, the point is, this year for the first time (in a long time) the parade will be televised. Back in the day, I would have really appreciated this.
This year I will be watching the parade in my pajamas. Mimosas, anyone?
*Ryan Adams
**This is not a conspiracy of not having pictures of the neglected 3rd child. Really. I searched high and low.
dual personalities 
I was a clown!! I think I would have preferred Tinkerbell.
I don’t remember a clown. You wore a dress! Maybe you had clown make-up?
Yes, and they were clown-style dresses!
I had to be the hillbilly gal–I didn’t even know Susie did the parade! And ughhh I wish it had been televised back then!
Yes, of course, you were the hillbilly gal–it is even more embarrassing!
I remember the Float Committee was named ‘Krewe.’ My floats were self-propelled. I had a Pirate Ship that rocked side to side with cannons that shot confetti, and a steamboat that had a Dixieland Jazz Band, a steam whistle and dancing girls. The girls’ costumes for these floats never made sense. I think they just put Mary and Susie in whatever costume they had on hand that fit.
Before Krewe I was a ‘Parade Marshall’, which meant I walked next to and was liaison for floats from outside groups such as the antique tractors club or (once) Miss Missouri! I never got anything with animals, thank goodness.
Before that I was a Marshall for the VP Fair, which meant I got to the fairgrounds at midnight and directed trucks in and out all night and the next morning – always in the pouring rain – with a flashlight that had dead batteries.
25 years of that was plenty of volunteering.
P.S. – note the primary sponsor of the televised Parade (see the second photograph) 🙂
That be Wells Fargo, right?
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