Most of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival for 2009 is over. Today is Sunday in the Park day where the Midway that has occupied downtown moves to the park, but as I write this it is raining so I’m guessing it will be a slow day there. While it threatened rain all day yesterday, it never fell after the early morning so the big day went off on schedule and the Grand Feature Parade was fun as usual.
I say over and over again about this event that it is small town America at its finest. You get a mixture of floats, bands, beauty queens, politicians, cartoon characters, clowns, elephants, mascots, military units, motorcycles, tractors, antique cars, celebrities, vendors selling all forms of trinkets and snacks, cuteness and the bizarre. All of this is thrown in with more parties than could possibly be attended.
I remember 10 years ago when our season at Wayside Theatre started a few weeks earlier than it does now. Our actors were coming in that weekend and at the time we had apartments along one of the routes where parade units were staged. I warned good friend John Alcott not to be too dismayed when he woke up the next morning and found 
elephants outside his dwelling. Sure enough, he called me saying he couldn’t believe it but there were elephants outside his window. When you give up an entire town to some big parades and big parties, you never know what you’ll find outside your door. Or who you’ll find in your house as the partiers just pass from house to house.
The crowd gets progressively happier as the drinking goes on, and because the parade is a long one (3 + hours) the crowd also becomes vaguely and alternately interested and disinterested. Each parade(The Firefighters Parade takes place Friday night and the Grand Feature parade on Saturday) eventually becomes two parades as folks walk up and down the parade route heading from house to house and party to party stopping along the way as they pass friends along the way.
Pink and green (the official colors are everywhere and on every conceivable garment or accessory. It is extremely informal and occasionally someone will rush out to give a hug or a high five to someone passing along in the parade. Yesterday, we witnessed an interesting incident occur when former Pittsburg Steeler Jack Ham was driven by. A fan rushed out to shake hands and Ham waved him away saying he didn’t want to touch anybody. Don’t know if that was just his own celebrity/personal space rule or brought on by the swine flu, but it happened.
GE (we have a local plant here) was tossing out 130 year life light bulbs to the crowd. They also had a dancing light bulb who looked suspiciously like a ghost. We called him Casper the Friendly Light Bulb. Large $100 bills and $1 million dollar bills with Obama’s picture and some sort of way too wordy for a drunk parade watching crowd were being passed out.
As in past years the highlights of the parade were several Bolivian dance groups. Adorned in colorful and noisy costumes these folks dance some pretty amazing routines and seem to be in constant motion throughout the parade. They really are fun to watch.
One other interesting thing I note at each of these parades. It seems every high school band now has a contingent of parents and supporters marching behind and along side who carry bottles of water and rush in and out of the ranks offering a quick drink of water or a quick spritz. I guess I’m just too old, but I remember marching in long parades like this in wool uniforms with no sips of water in sight.
Things change but it seems the parade of life always marches on.
Enjoy the pictures after the break. I’ll post up some videos later if I get the chance. Some of the pictures are from the early morning when I did my duty judging the floats, some are from the parade itself. Many more pictures here.
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