Town Crier: Christmas in July

Published 12:47 pm Monday, August 1, 2011

Small town entertainment most weeks is limited to what’s on at the movies, is there a live band playing somewhere, or maybe a trip out to eat. When it’s this hot and there’s no holiday anything between the Fourth of July and Labor Day, my mind wanders to a cooler clime and a special treat filled with meaning and memories.

Once a year, when summer’s over and fall is all but done, we get a Miracle Pageant a mile long, a Broadway show on wheels and a rolling party all wrapped up into one. We get a parade. A Christmas Parade!

The first parades I remember seeing in Dalton were the annual Christmas parades. That time of the year it was already dark and usually cold. Hamilton Street downtown was lined with people and the Christmas decorations were just going up in the stores. This was when there was actually a break between holidays and the decorations and store displays actually coincided with the proper holiday. In other words, in October you had Halloween. Then in late November there was Thanksgiving and then you slid into Christmas. Now it’s mid-July and I can buy Halloween stuff at Cracker Barrel. What happened to Fourth of July clearance items and maybe in August a “back-to-school” sale?

Well, meanwhile back to Christmas parades, the first sign that things were getting started was the wail of police sirens. Then you would see the flashing lights reflecting off the buildings at the end of the block. Then the whirling gumball machine lights would round the corner and you knew with the slow-moving police and sheriff department cars the parade had started!

Then there would be the local marching bands playing a Christmas tune while they marched. Even as a little kid I would see the baton twirlers leading the way in their little outfits and think “man, that looks cold.” And to think that they had to twirl a freezing piece of metal in their fingers while they marched. I bet it was just such a parade when one of the baton twirlers thought, “forget this, I’m going to set the ends of my baton on fire and get warm!” And that’s how flaming baton twirling got started. It seems mostly limited to luau parties in Hawaii and Disney World these days.

After the bands would come pickup trucks with church groups in them, or maybe a truck pulling a trailer with hay bales on it with a Sunday School group on it. Thank goodness the Parade Marshals always kept the flaming baton twirlers separated away from the hay bale trailers. Sometimes the church groups would sing carols and sometimes the trailers with the little kids would have a manger theme and some of the little ones would be wearing a sheep outfit, or maybe a Joseph robe with a fake beard. I bet the sheep kid got to stay the warmest.

There would also be big diesel trucks with corporate logos on the side and some of the employees of the companies and their kids riding on back. These were great because back then they would throw candy from the “floats.” Hard candy and lollipops and bite-size Tootsie Rolls would rain down on the onlookers. The kids (like me) would catch them on the fly or chase them back behind the crowd onto the sidewalk, or watch where they skidded on the asphalt and then snatch them up.

Every so often you would see one that was too close to the vehicles and your dad wouldn’t let you go after it. Other times you spot some tasty bit of cellophaned color slide out of your grasp and disappear down a drain grate.  Soon your hands were full, so you stuffed your pockets and finally, like a reversed version of Trick or Treat where now you stayed in one place and the candy came to you, you had so much candy your were handing it to your folks to keep and you actually started getting picky. Oh look, there’s a sour apple Jolly Rancher. Forget it, I’ll wait for a grape…

Scouts and soldiers

Back then, there were no video games or instant messaging so kids had to do oddball stuff to keep busy, like play with other kids. So that’s why back then there was an endless supply of Cub Scout, Webelo, Brownie, Camp Fire Girl, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops marching in the parade. They would have a couple of the kids or maybe even the grownup Scout Masters carrying a banner and flags at the front of the little group. They marched proudly. I thought they all looked alike and besides, they never threw candy. The uniforms did look pretty nifty though, even if there was always one kid who had forgotten his hat or had his shirttail hanging out.

Even though it was during the Vietnam War or just after, I do remember honor guards of soldiers proudly marching up at the front of the parade with flags held high and rifles on their strong shoulders. They had helmets on, bright, heavy boots and I always wondered if their rifles were loaded. You know… just in case. The soldiers made you feel safe.

Of course the climax of the Christmas Parade was when a giant fire truck would roll along and up on the back would be the Old Guy himself, Santa Claus. He waved with gloved hands and made eye contact with all the kids. The folks on the fire truck would throw out candy but I would always keep my eyes peeled for when Santa would grab a handful and throw into the crowd. I still remember that some years he would face my side when he tossed the goodies, but other years, just as I was getting into position and making sure nobody taller then me was edging in front, he would turn to the other side of the street and throw a handful of peppermints.

Santa, it’s me, right here in front of you. How could you? That settles it; next year I’m not wearing a hat.

Getting to be IN the parade

As a kid, I was part of the parade, but only as a spectator. An important job, necessary like a pair of ears in the woods is necessary for a falling forest tree to be heard, but face it, a parade without a crowd watching ain’t much of a parade. But by the time I hit junior high (that’s middle school to you kiddies out there), I was in the band, and we got invited to march in the parade.

We only knew one song, and they kept us plenty far away from the high school bands, lest our sour notes cause them to suffer tone deafness, but doggone it, we were IN the parade.

Being in the parade is quiet different than watching the parade. First of all, you have to show up and hour or an hour and a half before it starts. And this was back in the day when O.J. Simpson could run through a security-free airport and jump on his plane minutes before it took off. People weren’t use to waiting a long time to get somewhere. So you stood around, talking to friends, lining up, warming up, playing softly a couple of times and waiting for the time scheduled for the parade to begin.

But when the start time came, an unexpected thing happened. Nothing. Sure we heard the familiar police sirens in the distance. We could even hear the thumping cadence of another band’s drum section. But we just stood there. It seems it takes a while for the forward movement of the starting units in the parade to accordion back to where we were. Maybe half an hour later we actually started to move. Then it was another 20 minutes or so before we got to the starting point of the parade and encountered the crowds. By then, you’ve been standing, walking or marching for about two hours.

Luckily the crowd energizes you and you get a burst of adrenaline. Now you’ve got an audience for your song. As you march along, trying to concentrate on keeping step with the guys in your line, you occasionally hear a shout out from the crowd. It’s your name. You peek to the side (you’re supposed to keep eyes front at all times) and there’s an aunt or a cousin. Then at some point further along, you hear that cry-out you know better than any other. Your mom spotted you. And then dad’s camera from 100 feet away flashes. It’s bright enough to embarrass you with your “cool” friends but, when you get the photos back from the drugstore, it wasn’t bright enough to make a very good picture. People in the foreground are flashed out bright white like they just came from a glow in the dark convention, and you in the back are left a fuzzy, grainy shadow, only recognizable from the shirttail hanging out of your pants.

By the end of the parade you’ve been on your feet for three hours, you’ve played the same song 42 times on a cold metal mouthpiece, and the crowd has thinned to a group of people waiting for you to pass so they can cross the street and get to their car. You get to the end of the parade and you still have to find your parents and get home.

And to add to the mixed up expectations of being IN the parade, you realize you didn’t get any candy OR see Santa Claus. Ah, what price being part of a historic tradition.

A lot of the things from Christmas parades past can be found in the Christmas parades now. It’s always fun to spot your friends and neighbors on the back of a float, or see somebody you haven’t seen in a while a couple of steps up the sidewalk. The parades don’t go down Hamilton Street anymore, which is a real shame. And they don’t throw candy from the floats so much anymore. But the bands are just as good and it’s always a thrill to see Santa bringing the Christmas Spirit to town.

And with the heat bubbling the asphalt these days, can you blame me when my mind strays from July?

Dalton native Mark Hannah works in film and video production.