Another Parade Passes By

This may sound un-American, but I hate parades. Watching bands and dignitaries and floats made of tissue paper flowers march by while I stand on the sidewalk is just not my idea of fun. And, in case you didn’t know, parades generally take place outside, in all that weather. Either the sun is beating down or it’s raining. I don’t really like crowds, and there are always lots of excited people milling around at a parade. I can take all this in short doses, but the really good parades are ridiculously long.

I came by my dislike for parades naturally- it’s genetic. My mother also hated parades. Nonetheless, when I was a kid, we would faithfully attend every parade in our hometown of Swissvale. Why? Because my cousin was a majorette, and we were there to support our family, my mother explained. Mom would sit there with a huge smile on her face, waving her little flag, muttering under her breath, “Boy, I hate parades.” The lesson was that loyalty to family trumped everything else – you can endure anything for your family- even a parade.

Over the years, I couldn’t really get away from parades. When my son was young, we attended the Canonsburg Fourth of July Parade annually. This was the quintessential parade. It was the second largest Fourth of July parade in the state, second only to Philadelphia, but primarily this parade was known for the lawn chairs lining the parade route that residents would put out sometimes days in advance to reserve their spot. Even I had to admire the breadth and depth of the participants – sometimes the polka band would be followed directly by the ABATE club members riding their motorcycles. It was also really, really long – 2 ½ hours was pretty typical. It was torturous for me.

Just as my son was reaching the age where he might be able to attend this parade with some friends and would, in any case, be totally embarrassed to be seen in public with his mother anywhere much less the local parade, he became a drummer in his high school band. The Chartiers Houston Junior Senior High School Marching Band was, in my humble and totally objective opinion, terrific. Even if I did not just love my son enough to attend band functions, it would have been a pleasure to watch this band perform. Thank goodness, because for the next 5 ½ years, I attended every home football game, band festival, School Bus demolition derby, and, oh yes, local parade, including the Canonsburg Fourth of July Parade, specifically to see this band and my son perform.

That brings me to the Houston Pumpkin Festival Parade, which was the exception to my parade-hating rule. I didn’t just tolerate this parade. I LOVED this parade. It was part of one of the best three-day fairs in all the land and took place the second weekend of October, when the weather was more likely to be temperate. The Chartiers Houston Marching Band, the best marching band in the world, was the only band in the parade. While it had all the elements of any typical parade, it was small and intimate, and, more to the point, short, generally less than 30 minutes. It was the perfect parade.

The first year that my son participated in the Houston Pumpkin Festival Parade, I realized that he would have to be dropped off at the high school about an hour and a half before the start of the parade. I decided that after dropping him off, I would just find a place to park in the residential area near the parade route and wait around for the parade to begin.

Parking was scarce, and I was having trouble finding a spot. I was driving by the house of one of my son’s friends, which was on the parade route, and I noticed that their off-street parking spot was empty. Bobby’s dad was standing in the back yard, so I stopped and asked if I could use their spot. Sure, he said. The next thing I know, Cindy, Bobby’s mom, was at the side door, inviting me in. She had just made a pot of coffee and had some fresh pastries all ready. Cindy and I had gotten to know each other very well when our boys were friends in elementary school, but as they got into high school they developed different interests, so we didn’t see each other nearly as often. We had a nice visit, and then watched the parade from her front porch. This became an annual tradition, one I looked forward to each year, and one I remember fondly every October.

I thought that my days of enforced parade attendance had long ago come to end, but then I took a job in downtown Pittsburgh where I am sometimes forced to listen to parades even if I don’t have to watch them. The Veteran’s Day parade was marching past my office building just the other day. I immediately turned into the Ebenezer Scrooge of parades. My mouth clenched into a frown. “Infernal noise,” I muttered, “will that incessant racket never end?”

Then the sounds of the marching bands made me remember those days as a Chartiers Houston Marching Band groupie, and sharing the Houston Pumpkin Festival parade with Cindy, and I softened a little. My nostalgia ended long before the two-hour parade came to an end, but for a moment I remembered that any event – even a damn parade- can be splendid when spent with family and friends.

Don't Cry for Kanye, Taylor Swift

I didn’t actually watch this year’s MTV’s Video Music Awards. In case you didn’t either and were away from all media sources for the week following the broadcast, here’s what happened.

Taylor Swift, a 19-year-old country singer, won Best Female Video. As she was excitedly accepting her award, she was interrupted by rap star Kanye West. He jumped onto the stage, yanked the microphone out of her hand, and launched into a tirade, saying that Beyoncé, one of the other nominees in the category, had made “one of the best videos of all time.” Taylor was in tears. Beyoncé was sitting in the audience, stunned. When Beyoncé won the Best Video of the Year award later in the evening, she called Taylor Swift onto the stage and donated her air time to her, allowing Taylor to finish her acceptance speech.

So, in the end, Taylor Swift won a video music award, a lot of sympathy, and some invaluable exposure to a lot of people who had no previous knowledge of her (like me). I even checked out her video, "You Belong with Me" which was the age-old Cinderella story- nerdy girl wins cool, popular guy away from his nasty cheerleader girlfriend- but the there was a fresh, young sound to the song itself. Beyoncé won the top award, and demonstrated that she was the epitome of class. The only loser, as I saw it, was Kanye West, who lost the respect of most right-minded people by being an unspeakable cad.

Then one day I came across a video of a baby dancing to Beyonce’s award winning video “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” It was Beyoncé and two other women singing and dancing. This was the video Kanye deemed one of the best of all time? Really, Kanye?

Wow. Obviously Kanye hasn’t seen very many videos. Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on music videos, and obviously rating them is a subjective exercise. However, back in the olden days of videos – the 1980’s- I watched a fair number of them, as I was happy to stay home in the evenings with my baby and MTV. While I stopped watching videos of any kind on a regular basis sometimes in the 90’s, I can tell you that there were some mighty fine videos made back in the 80’s that could best “Single Ladies” any day.

In my opinion, the best videos were those that told a story, preferably one that reIated to the song itself. This is not to say there were not some terrific performance videos, like Van Halen’s joyous and colorful “Jump.” I think the general consensus is that Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was the best video ever. It was a 15 minute extravaganza that was actually a short campy horror movie. It was spectacular but clearly extraordinary as videos go. My favorite more typical Michael Jackson video was “Beat It” which is kind of like the “West Side Story” of music videos- complete with warring gangs and intricately choreographed dance numbers.

If I had to pick one video that I loved the best, though, it had to be Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” “Life is a mystery” the song begins, and so was the song itself. I could never decide if the song was about finding religion, or finding a relationship that was so fine that it was actually spiritual, or if it was just saying that sex could be like a religious experience. Maybe it was about all three, or any one of them, depending upon the listener. That’s what made it such a brilliant song. All that, AND it had a beat and you could dance to it.

The “Like a Prayer” video captured that ambiguity perfectly. Madonna, dressed for church in a black slip, escapes the attention of some thugs by going into a church. She is saved by a statue of a saint who comes to life and embraces her. Meanwhile, another woman is raped and murdered by the thugs, and the come-to-life statue finds the victim but is then framed by the police for the crime. Madonna visits him in prison, and –I think- testifies on his behalf- freeing him, perhaps? There is also a choir involved in rescuing Madonna- representing the redemptive power of song, I presume. There is a lot of religious imagery, and they dance. So is it about the power of religion to save us, or about our ability to save each other through love and spirituality and/or sex? Who knows? It was fabulous-that’s what I know!

Naturally, what with the burning crosses, and the stigmata, and the message, it was also a highly controversial video. It was called sacrilegious by some critics, and there were even calls for Madonna to be thrown out of the Church. This probably pleased Madonna, who was never one to shy away from controversy. Heck, Madonna loved controversy- she thrived on it.

Taylor Swift went onto win “Entertainer of the Year” at the Country Music Awards the other night, where she was presumably among friends, and where she was able to complete her acceptance speech uninterrupted. However, country music star Winona Judd complained the next day that it all came too soon to Taylor, and then added some nonsense about her mamma and her having to pay their dues driving from concert to concert in their early days. Taylor is learning a valuable lesson early- no matter how great your success, accomplishments, or recognition, there will always be detractors but you can’t let them get you down. Just ask Madonna.

What's your favorite music video? Comment below.

Dimples and Hydraulics- Riding the Rapids in PA

I am two with nature. -Woody Allen

It was 6 a.m. on a drizzly, overcast, unseasonably cool Saturday morning in August. I was meeting 14 co-workers in a lonely parking lot to go whitewater rafting down the Youghigheny River, with one of those groups that arrange outdoor adventure trips for city folks like us.

Not only was I not the outsdoorsy type myself, I was practically a card-carrying klutz. Just to add to the fun, I couldn’t swim, and was terrified of the water. Nonetheless, I willingly agreed to pay money to spend one very long weekend day riding the rapids with my work friends.

After a subdued van drive, we arrived at the river. The eerie morning silence was broken only by the powerful sound of rushing water, nature’s Muzak. The beauty of the river and the surrounding forest was obscured by the overcast sky, which made the normally vibrant colors of the water and the trees fade into shades of gray and muddy brown. It was surreal and ominous in a neurotic sort of way, like a nature scene from a Woody Allen film.

Our guide Kathy was one of those naturally petite women who combined perkiness with a no-nonsense toughness, a combination that lent itself well to being a head cheerleader, a drill sergeant or a whitewater rafting guide. “O.K., we will be riding four to a raft,” she shouted, “We will ride 16 separate rapids on our way down the river. Before we take each rapid I will explain what to expect and any special instructions. The trip should take about five hours. Any questions?”

I mentioned the fact that I could not swim, and that I once almost drowned at my local swimming pool. No problem! We’d be wearing life jackets, she told me. She carefully explained what to do in case I fell in, a possibility I dismissed as too gruesome to actually consider.

Keep my body straight. Point my feet downstream. Put my chin down. Cross my arms and hold the bottom of my life jacket tightly with both hands. Following these simple rules, I would ride the rapids like a human raft. It would be Fun, said Kathy.

The trip began. Kathy was in my raft, which I found reassuring. I was assigned the front left seat in the raft which made me the person with the least responsibility for keeping the raft going in the right direction. I just had to row, preferably in time with the others. Riding the first few rapids made one thing perfectly clear. I was definitely the weak link on my team. Keeping up with the rowing and staying in the raft became my goals.

Kathy turned serious when we came to the rapids that someone named “Dimples” in a fit of whimsy. Dimples was so named because there were two huge rocks on either side of the rapid. In order to navigate the rapid and live, we had to negotiate the turns through the rocks quite precisely. Once past the first rock, we had to change direction quickly in order to pass the rock safely. Our turn had to be sharp, but not too sharp, and clean, or there was a very real possibility that my co-worker and raftmate Jim could go crashing into the rock on his right, resulting in his death or serious injury.

I liked Jim. He was an extremely nice and gentle man who administrated early intervention programs for children with disabilities. I did not want him to die.

We readied ourselves to go through Dimples. I fought the urge to close my eyes. We entered the rapid, passed the rock on the right and masterfully made the quick turn around the rock on the left. Perfect! We had done Dimples. We were positively giddy. Dimples was our Everest. A new pride filled us.

We resumed our journey down the river. The afternoon was progressing nicely when the time came to navigate Double Hydraulics, the rapid made up of two adjacent whirlpools. Getting through the Hydraulics would be no sweat, Kathy assured us. We had done Dimples, and this one was nothing next to Dimples.

Into Double Hydraulics we went. Then it happened. With raging force the water rose above me and the whirlpool sucked me into the river. Although encompassed by a panic so great that it was positively suffocating, I tried to keep my head and follow Kathy’s earlier instructions.

Body straight. It was a whirlpool, my body wouldn’t stay straight. Feet downstream. There was no downstream – I was going in circles. Chin down. O.K. my chin was down in a natural attempt to get into a fetal position, but I didn’t see how this was helping me. Arms crossed. Hold bottom of the life jacket tightly with both hands. I was literally holding on for dear life, but to no avail.

The whirlpool was bigger than me. It was sucking me in and spitting me out, sucking me in and spitting me out. Although I took deep breaths of air each time I was spit out, I was swallowing a lot of water each time I was sucked back in. I prayed fervently, but in the power struggle between the whirlpool and me, the whirlpool clearly was winning.

My life flashed before my eyes. It didn’t take long. I was 23 at the time. My life had been short and rather pitiful. I had had no life, and now it was over. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die.

I wasn’t the only one who thought I was in trouble. In my moments of being spit out, I could see Kathy, until now the very picture of calm coolness, jumping up and down in the raft, frantically screaming, “OOH! OOH! GET HER! GET HER! OH MY GOD, GET HER!!”

Then I saw a hand. A big hand. An enormous hand. A hand bigger than life itself, well, certainly bigger than my life. It was reaching for me. Was I hallucinating? Was it God?

The hand grabbed me and pulled me back into the raft, and I could see that… it was Jim! “You had a really funny look on your face, and I thought I had better help you.” I was reminded it was always a good idea to have a guy named Jim with you if you were going to be rafting down a river.

Kathy asked me if I was O.K. Sure, I was fine. I was soaking wet, I had narrowly escaped an encounter with Death, and I was physically and psychologically chilled to the bone. But why complain?

Since then, I have made a point of staying out of large bodies of water. Many years later, however, I would have an ill-fated encounter with a horse. But that’s another blog.