I love a parade

We’re now in the middle of my community’s annual summer celebration. I live in the blissfully non-descript community of New Brighton, Minnesota, and each August we celebrate New Brighton’s quasi-agricultural past with the “Stockyard Days” celebration. At one point, about 100 years ago, New Brighton was a railroad stop and was the site of some stockyards, which eventually lost out to the massive operations in St. Paul and South St. Paul. The centerpiece of the celebration is the Stockyard Days parade, which runs down Old Highway 8, one of the ugliest streets in the Twin Cities. Using Old 8 for the parade route is a lot like holding a home tour in the mud room, but that’s what we do. I guess if it gets dirty, no one cares.

Stockyard Days is a good peg for such an event, because it gives a discernible theme for the parade and it thoroughly confuses all the neighboring suburban beauty queens on display. The lovelies from Hopkins and Anoka and Lino Lakes and Vadnais Heights and other such places show up with tiaras, permanents and ball gowns and then end up smashing a Stetson on their heads. Suddenly they all look vaguely like Debra Winger circa 1980 and you want to look for the Lone Star and the mechanical bulls. But that’s not what this parade is about, ultimately.

Candy is what the parade is really about. Just ask my son, who brought a plastic shopping bag to the parade and collected about 4 pounds of candy that had been tossed from the various parade units. I am not exaggerating this – he typically hauls in a lot less candy at Halloween than he does at this parade. My favorite part was when a local dental clinic was just about carpet bombing the crowd with hard candy; this is an excellent way to drum up business.

My daughter Maria had a chance to march this year with her Brownie troop. She was very happy to do so and she managed to fling candy at her brother, just like everyone else did.

Since this is an off year for elections, there weren’t nearly as many politicians on display. It also seemed like the air was cleaner, but I have to assume that was coincidental.