Tuesday night we went up/downtown for the county fair parade. Predictably, all the kids were lined up along the street with plastic bags, waiting for the floats, fire engines, and troupes of various flavors to walk by and throw candy. We took a back row spot with the stroller and watched everything go by.
We should have scooted forward, we didn’t count on a bunch of teenagers to decide that where we were standing was the EXACT spot they had to use to get back and forth to their seats along the road 15 times. Kids and adults too. What is wrong with just watching the parade? One kid, any time he got anything that wasn’t candy, he’d come back and give it to his parents. He was probably 9. Kid, you can put the candy in the bag, put the damn keychain in the bag, it’s the same friggin size. Sigh. Anyway, another kid got 3 bottles of water and filled up his bag with candy along with a host of other things: beads, keychains, leaflets, lanyards, etc. Did his parents have him stop, let some of the other kids get some candy, quit acting like an idiot? Hmm, guess not. They gave him a second bag, which also almost got filled with candy. The smallest kid I saw got a few things picked up for her, although she wasn’t quite getting it, she probably got enough candy while she was there, happily twirling, sucking on a dum-dum pop to last her for a while, still, though, it was push and shove room only with the big kids, poor thing.
I think if we take Keeley back for another parade, we’ll find out where the middle of the parade is, and go there, away from the go-getters who stand out in front. It’s an interesting cultural phenomena to be sure. I don’t think the kids even see who is driving the cars, all they see is if they have a bucket full of tootsie rolls or not. Having marched, ridden horses and firetrucks in various parades, well, let’s just say I never got a chance to stand along the sides of the road to get any candy myself.
This year? Out of all the things being handed out to the crowd, we got one leaflet at the very end, the local hospital made sure everyone got a flyer to come to the new women’s care center and whatever else wing. Although many other groups came into the crowd, we were missed by every politician, water bottle pawning church group, popsicle, ice cream sandwich, and even the photographers passed us by. Hello? Photographers? We were the ONLY people with a baby on that side of the street. ONLY ones. Every other kid is going to get school pictures taken, we might have been the only ones there that might be in the market for some professional photos. 2 of them came by. We got nothing.
Keeley did seem to enjoy some of the stuff going by, although by about halfway through I think she was probably done. Flashing lights and bands all past, the rest was convertibles with contest winners from neighboring counties, floats with fairies and sorcerers from various church and community groups, apparently there must have been a magical theme (corresponded well with Harry Potter movie coming out at the same time) handing out candy and etc.
By the way? The little miss beauty of the year or whatever, from like 5 counties away, whatever the name of it was, the idea was that she was the prettiest girl in the contest, if so I feel SO sorry for the rest of the contestants, because she wasn’t cute at all. Her family seemed to like her though, there was a whole ‘queen crew’ t-shirts and all following her in the convertible. Apparently someone taught her the ‘queen’ wave. It sucked and made her look unnatural and uncomfortable sitting there. The junior miss from our county with the huge smile and friendly wave was a ton cuter. Just my opinion, I guess…
