I Love a Parade

"Nash"ville

The pic above is my husband and me--(And for the record, usually I look a lot more like Cindy Crawford. But for some reason, I think there was something wrong with the camera that day. LOL :)

As promised here's a quick look at the Colbert 4th of July parade. Excitement on parade day was almost palpable, and people, animals, marching bands, batons, tractors, antique cars and a crazy assortment of "floats" were all assembled at the crack of dawn in an organized chaos. My husband and I, our 4 kids (plus 2 extras) sat waiting for the parade to commence in our way-cool vintage jeep (Korean War era, not WWII as I previously reported--oops, so I missed the jeep's age by one war. I never promised historical accuracy.) It was a fun day--even if our sweet ride didn't quite finish. Our "carriage" began sputtering and jerking and then finally conked out a little over half way through--much to the chagrin of the chief mechanic who happens to be my husband (and whose meticulous restoration work is usually flawless.) Thinking that we'd run out of gas, Chief Mechanic hoofed it to a friend's house along the parade route to borrow a bit of gas, while the rest of us sat in the motionless vehicle and smiled and waved and tried to look as if this was the plan all along. Turns out that the jeep was just overheated so we pulled off the road, ditched it, grabbed a few flags and the buckets of candy, and walked the last part of the parade. The kids thought it was hilarious, and I'll bet they'll never forget it! We made quite a splash. ;)
Once we made it to the end of the parade route, we sat and watched the rest of the action go by. Here are a few pics.

This float pictured below was loaded with a ton of kids armed with water pistols. My kids knew many of them so when they saw us in the crowd we became target practice!

Here are the local Red Hat Ladies, and I'm not sure if this dude at the bottom of the pic was lost or if he just didn't get the memo that his hat was supposed to be red instead of blue.

An interesting entrant pictured below--a hearse decorated in anti-gator graffiti (apologies to you Florida fans, but it is Bull Dawg country here.)

This year, included in the procession was a local set of middle-aged twins, Harold and Derrell, who showed up driving what they call "honey wagons." Maybe you've heard of them--they enjoyed their 15 1/2 minutes of fame on the Jimmy Kimmel show a year or so ago. [editor's note: if you are eating breakfast right now while blog-surfing, or if you're squeamish or faint of heart, stop reading right now. I promise you will not want to go down the path that Harrold and Derrell force me every 4th of July. ~cn]

Each truck pulled a "float" with what you might call performance art --one of the twins, Harold (or was it Derrell?) was featured on a trailer decked out with a toilet --he periodically, plunged his head into the bowl and then slung (slinged? slang? Whatever he did, it was gross) the water into the crowd. The other twin Derrell (or was it Harrold?) was featured on a separate trailer wearing a diaper over his clothes. It was a class act. The kids in the crowd think it's great. I don't think there's enough Purell in this world to make me stand anywhere near this part of the parade.

See the guy marked with the purple arrow? I had the same reaction when Harrold, dressed in the red and white shirt (or was it Derrell,) bent over to show the crowd his, um . . . good side. "Ack!! My eyes!! My eyes!!

Sorry for that, readers. So in an effort to clear your virtual visual palette, so to speak, I'll leave you with this sweet photo of our little dog.