What was the point?

Yesterday the town I live in had its "Community Days" parade. My mother was supposed to have ridden in it as one of the WWII veterans with the American Legion and we were looking forward to seeing her with others of the Great Generation. She didn't make it because she got the time wrong on when to catch the bus, and, at 83, she can be forgiven for that. But that's neither here nor there because we missed the part of the parade with the American Legion vehicle, so we wouldn't have seen her in any case.

We would have seen more of the parade had there been any publicity of the route and the time of the parade. The local newspaper had a one-line blurb under a photo of a ferris wheel that the "Community Days" celebration was to run at a local park from Thursday to Saturday. Period. That the parade's path was changed from last year's route that began at the aforementioned park, was not mentioned in the paper. My husband and I walked toward last year's starting point, only to realize halfway there that we could see normal traffic on the road, and that, to us, indicated that the parade 'wasn't there.' We then had to rush back home and drive to where the parade might be, but by then the parade, such as it was, had partially passed by that spot.

To find out whether we'd missed the American Legion vehicle, we had to watch the parade. We didn't think this would be a hardship, but as the parade bore down on us, we wore down. All the sad spectacle amounted to was stretches of empty street punctuated by ordinary vehicles adorned, at most, with paperboard-posters on their sides decorated only with the Magic Markered name of a "sponsoring" local business. Most of the vehicles were pickup trucks, and usually there were children sporting colored t-shirts riding in the bed of the pickup and flinging cheap candy at the spectators. I assume the groups of children were sport teams, but it was hard to tell since there were few indicators. Occasionally out-runners would come to the curb to hand out flyers. The religious flyers we were given were thrust at us, but the girl with the fireworks-sale flyer at least asked if we wanted one. We didn't.

I don't like being a grinch about this because many of the people seemed to enjoy watching this 'parade,' but I don't know why they enjoyed the parts that didn't include someone they knew. Enjoying that part is to be expected since that's why we were there, but if that's all one wants to do -- see one's acquaintances -- it can be better accomplished by making an appointment with the person rather than by organizing a parade. I expected to see something interesting in addition to seeing my mom and other Legionnaires. The couple 'next to' us were happy enough sitting in their mini-van with the engine running the entire time. I assume they were keeping the air conditioning running so they wouldn't get hot, and, for that, my mind boggles. Gasoline prices have spiked, refineries can't keep up with demand, and these people attended a parade in air-conditioned comfort while their car turned expensive gasoline into gases which contributed to the local city's ozone alert.

And speaking of vehicles needlessly processing liquid gasoline into invisible atoms, that's another thing about the part of the parade -- for all but one entry it consisted of nothing but vehicles. The exceptional entry was the Young Marines. Those boys marched behind their color guard in proper parade formation as their sergeant called cadence. It was the most energetic performance of the morning.

Otherwise:

• There were no floats.
• There were no bands.
• There were no performers (well, there was the one little car that drove in figure-8s).
• There were no horses.
• There were no dogs.
• There were no clubs.
• There were no drill teams although one truck did have some young ladies repeating that tired cheer "Let's go, _____, let's go. [clap, clap] Let's go, ______, let's go. [clap, clap]."
• There was only one costumed figure -- a lion. We felt sorry for the lion walking with a very padded head in the heat.

The parade consisted of:

• lots of pickup trucks
• a tractor-trailer from a local business; the horn tooted sporadically
• a couple of older cars, but not much older
• one racing car pulled by a truck
• an older tractor
• one of those motorized 4-wheeled quadricycles (an ATV?) ridden by two teenaged boys in everyday street clothes and no sign to indicate anything special about them

In my 54 years I have seen a few parades. They have ranged from the the Easter Parade in Hamilton, Bermuda, to the Oktoberfest parade in Munich to a small town parade in Leonardville, Kansas, population 456 (this town numbers about 21,000). In the 1960s before I left home for my grownup adventure, I had even seen parades in this very town, and helped decorate a float for one.

I know that random vehicles driving slowly do not constitute a parade. Ramona Quimby could have done better.

To me this pathetic expenditure of gasoline is an indicator of our pop-cultural stagnation demonstrating that our collective imaginations have atrophied because others do the bulk of our imagining and playing for us. It seems that we are 'virtually' incapable of putting together even a marginally interesting procession for our fellow townsmen and women.

Next year, I'll just stay home and save myself from witnessing the spectacle of people amused by everyday pickups adorned with business names driving at two miles per hour. If I want to see my mom, I'll go over and play canasta with her.