The Parade Passed By...

Last Saturday I was driving out to drop off my sick computer to the ultimate Computer Wizard. I was heading west on 4100 South when I found the road closed due to a parade by the Ghetto Mall. Seriously, who goes to a parade the Friday after Thanksgiving? Do people really take time to go to parades at all anymore?

It got me thinking about things that I once enjoyed that I haven't done for a while. And why haven't I done some of them, I wonder? Some things it's been more than a while. It's been years.....and years.....and years. So just to chat about a few:

Parades; probably been over 15 years since I went to the last one. Yet as a child, the 4th of July Parade was a mainstay. Then we'd gather just a month or so later for the parade kicking off the County Fair. We'd sit on the curb of State Street on our bony little fannies (as my mom called them)and plug our ears when the fire engines blared their sirens, clapping for the clowns walking by, and moving to the beat of the bands. My favorite was always the floats. I still have a thing about sparkling, glittery, lumbering vehicles topped off by pretty girls wearing pretty dresses and pretty crowns. My kids never liked parades, or at least the boys didn't seem to like them, and it was just too much effort dragging 6 little ones through the crowds. I'm not sure I'd have the patience to sit through one in person now; let alone the ones on TV (Macy's Thanksgiving, Rose Parade, etc.) that began to be boring sometime around my 7th birthday. As a side note, I was in many parades as a flag carrier for the band when I was in high school. And once when the kids were little, I was Cruella De Ville and my kids were Dalmatians for the Primary Parade the Saturday before Pioneer Day. Maybe after that, I learned that watching a parade was never as fun as being in one.

Circuses; wow, even longer since that parades. I took my kids once at the old Salt Palace. It was a Shriner's parade that I bought tickets to for charity. I wonder how many of them remember. It wasn't a very good circus. Then I was taken on a date to one in high school. I think it was either Cory Plant or Jim Cook, but I don't remember. But as a child, we had a run where it was a yearly event. My dad would take all of us girls (probably a great break for my mom) to the old Derk's Field on 13th South, right by where my dad worked. The circus started at night and I can still remember the feel of the birght lights on the dark field, trying desperately to keep my eyes open while I saw the lions and tigers and bears, oh my! The animal acts were never quite as interesting as the trapeze artists and other aerialists because I was, again, always drawn to ladies in pretty costumes. Put sparkles on a piece of clothing and you've captured my attention immediately. Watching little dogs jump through hoops wasn't very thrilling. I do remember my dad buying me a Kewpie doll every year, a sweet plastic concoction with feathers and sparkles that never lasted beyond the next day. But how I loved them for that day.

Shopping for Christmas trees (and for a few years plodding miles into the wilderness to cut them down) was a big thing for my family growing up. My mother loved the smell of a long needle pine tree in the house. We stopped that tradition early in our marriage when one year the tree we bought at trusty Allied Supply was dead by Christmas Day. We opened presents under the drooping limbs and the minute the kids were off with their toys, I spent the morning taking off the decorations and lights. Grant and I dragged it out to the field, where he lit a match that torched it immediately. It cured me of real trees. The next year we purchased our first "fake" tree. Grant teased the kids by showing them the 12" one the clerk at the store had thrown in for free before he brought out the 8 ft one. It was just a few years later that we learned that Laurie had such an allergy to pine that we couldn't even light a pine scented candle to invite the smell into the house without her coughing and sneezing in misery. I don't miss the real tree ever. Who needs to be climbing under a bunch of glass bulbs to water a tree every day? And who needs to come up with an extra $50 every year when the budget is already tight?

And, believe it or not, there was a time when I was crafty. Not sneaky, mind you...that's not me. But I used to go to the old musty, messy places called Zims and Utah Craft before they morphed into clean and crisp places like Roberts and Michaels. Yes, Virginia, I purchased paint for wood nativities and silk flowers for arrangements and glitter for whatever I could find. (Do we see a trend with the glitter thing? Ya, Ya. I think we do.) That was really a long time ago! I don't even know when it ended. I was never good at "crafts." I think I do things too tightly with my hands or something like that. I must be a little uptight. (Niel would laugh if he read that one.) I could never be loose and flowery and creative. And my house would get messy. Crafts took up precious space on the kitchen table and after spending hours getting burned with the hot glue gun, I would stop to see that the house had been demolished by my own personal Mackay wrecking crew and the crafts just never seemed worth it after counting the cost.

It's funny how the things I once enjoyed lost their enjoyment. Perhaps I've gotten too busy with my to-do list. Perhaps it's just that I've found new enjoyments. All I know is that last Friday, I was surprised to find there were still parades being held somewhere, anywhere on the day after Thanksgiving. Looks like Santa arrived at the Valley Fair Mall without me. And, frankly...that's fine by me!