Parading In Style

I don't care much for parades. I have never been fond of them. They seem so pointless unless you are fortunate enough to be where a band is playing and not just marching. One thing I will admit: a parade should be seen in person and not on a TV screen if you wish to get the "full effect" of it all. Yes, a parade should be experienced and not viewed.
I've been in a few parades. It's more fun to be in the parade rather than standing on the curb watching it pass by, at least that's how I feel. It's always felt like organized people-watching with balloons and floats and a few bands tossed in for effect. Fire trucks with sirens wailing and politicians riding in limos waving to the crowd. Lots of waving in parades, and folks seem plum tickled to be doing it.
I've already expressed my dislike for the Mummers parade; seems sacrilegious coming from a South Jersey boy, but there you are.
I'd be in a parade in 1961. The Woodbury Heights Fourth of July parade to be exact. I'd be in the parade as a Cub Scout. Our den was supposed to march in it along with the Boy Scouts, but not enough of us showed up, so we all rode in the back of the scout troop's truck and, yep, you guessed it, waved at the people we rode by. They, of course, waved back with enthusiasm.
It was perfectly natural for all the waving in the Heights parade. Ours was a small affair, and you knew practically everyone in town, so it wasn't that phony type of waving so prevalent in say, the Miss America Parade, or when the Queen of England does that dopey "Royal" wave thing. No, we were saying hi to friends and neighbors; just one big hand-flapping love fest on America's birthday.
Our parade was simple. Civic groups like the Lions Club, boys and girls in their scout troops, the mayor waving from a car, of course. We might be lucky and have one or both of the local band favorites. First there was the Bonsal Blues, the band of the American Legion dressed in light blue uniforms with white belts and helmets. My classmate Greg Jones would march with them. The other band might be the Pitman Hobo Band, from the small town of Pitman just a few miles away down Glassboro Road. These guys dressed in old clothes designed to look like comic clown/hobos. Both bands are Gloucester County traditions, and perform in parades and at local events to this day.
We might have a Nike missile, symbol of our military readiness, towed down the street. It was supposed to make us all feel a little safer, and everyone would cheer as it rolled by. The volunteer firemen would ride out in their trucks and ring the bells and blast their sirens. Kids on bikes decorated with flags and red, white and blue ribbons, and maybe an antique car or two, and that was it. Nothing fancy, just friends and neighbors sharing a moment of patriotism and good cheer.
I'd get lucky in the year of 1962. I wouldn't have to march in this parade either. My Uncle Marshal was invited to drive his old-time car in our parade that year, and he let me and my brother Carl ride along with him. Uncle Marsh was a mechanic with Ace Motors Ford in Woodbury, and he was the family expert on all things automotive. If you needed advice about what was wrong with your car, Uncle Marshal was the man to call. He was a shade tree mechanic on his days off, and I remember watching him work on lots of cars in our yard back in the day.
His antique car was a 1914 Sphinx, a rare automobile built by a company that lasted only two years: 1914 to 1916. Uncle Marsh had completely restored it and he drove it in quite a few parades. I'd get to ride in it again in a much bigger parade held in Woodbury.
The Sphinx was a gray-blue color with a canvas roof. It had that old time look with spoked wheels and a body that had just evolved from a wagon. Big fenders and running boards and an engine that chugged instead of roared. It was too cool, and we were going to ride in it.
The Fourth of July of 1963 would be Carl's seventh birthday, and Mom decided he and I would dress alike in red shirts, blue slacks and white plastic imitation straw hats. We would be Yankee Doodle Dandies riding in our Uncle's old car, dressed like American flags. We waved like flags, too. Yeah, we waved at everybody and everybody waved back. We were royalty for a day, celebrities in our own minds, and it was grand. It was a day I'll always remember.
I'd ride with Uncle Marshal in the Woodbury Heights parade again, and once or twice in the Woodbury Day grand parade that marched for over an hour. We'd wave at hundreds of people in that one, strangers mostly, but every now and then a cheer would go up as we passed relatives or friends standing in a group, letting us know they were there, friendly faces in the crowd.
I haven't been in a parade in a long long time.
I haven't watched too many either.
But I still believe it's always more fun to be in a parade than watching one.
Fun to be riding the wave.