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I consider myself something of an expert on parades; after all, I was the Grand Marshal of the Meeteetse Labor Day parade. Meeteetse is a wonderful little town in the western part of Wyoming with a population of about three-hundred and fifty. It's the place where I did my debut library event when my first novel, The Cold Dish, was published. When they first asked about the parade, I said no, thinking I was over-stepping my bounds by taking such an illustrious position-but they explained that the parade was only three blocks long and was so much fun that they usually circled back around and did another lap.
I never had such a good time in my life, and I have to admit that it changed my entire perspective on parades. Most of the parades I've witnessed have been in uniform, and there are sixteen parades in New York every year. I know because I worked practically all of them as a young patrolman. There are the ones that everybody knows about because they're on holidays or because people grew up watching them on TV back when there were only three channels. New Year's Day is a biggie along with Thanksgiving where I once saw twenty guys get lifted about ten feet off the ground because Underdog got an unexpected tailwind. But there are also the ones that nobody's heard of.
So you wanna give it a try, huh?
The Mermaid Parade.
Go ahead, I'm waiting.
It's the one where a bunch of people in the metropolitan area get dressed up like a mermaid, and I'm assuming even from close inspection, mermen... You know, like Ethel. Then they go to the boardwalk and throw fruit into the ocean to appease the sea god, Poseidon.
I'm not kidding.
It's in June.
You should go.
Then there are the usual holidays; but the biggest annually scheduled disasters have to be the lumped in with the ‘pride parades'. Now, some of these stand alone like the Cuban Day parade, which was great because the girls were really hot, closely followed by the Puerto Rican Day parade, which, by some of my less tolerant partners was sometimes referred to as the 911 parade, but as far as the women go, maybe I'm relaying a personal preference. Columbus Day is forever intertwined with the Italians, and everybody brings hibachis and cook on the sidewalks, which is great until some jabon pushes his under a parked car and heats up the gas tank and we get Chinese New Year in October.
The official Chinese New Year parade is, appropriately, in January.
That was an inside New York joke.
Now, you probably already know why it is that I'm bringing all this up, and it's even harder on me because I'm part Irish-but then so's everybody, right? I actually know families where the patriarch will suddenly announce on some arbitrary day on the calendar that "It's August 12, and you all know what we do on August twelfth!"-whereupon the entire family will troop into the den for the one-thousand and thirty-seventh viewing of The Quiet Man. Speaking from a law-enforcement background, I think I can call that a justifiable suicide pact. Now don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against The Duke-but about that nine-hundred-and-fifty-fifth viewing, I'd be getting twitchy.
You got it. St. Patrick's Day was the one everybody dreaded working the most. Why? Sometimes people drank too much. That was my politically correct statement on the subject, but not exactly true-everybody drank too much. I once had to break up an altercation outside of an Irish bar where two guys were fighting by throwing up on each other. I think I can say that of all the mutual assaults I've had to break up in my time as a cop, I really loathed that one the most.
As for the women, they aren't so great looking ‘cause it's March in New York and they're layered up to their red eyebrows-so who the hell knows? You try to judge a potential date by her forehead.
Happy St. Patrick's Day, and have a green beer for me.
Best,
Craig
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Parades
I grew up with the Sheridan WY rodeo parade an absolute must ... day off from the hayfield for everyone to go. Full day of parade, rodeo, "brush track" horse racing and carnival. Absolutely everyone in our little ranching community 60 miles north of Sheridan (in Montana) took off to go.
But for the ranch communities then ... in the 50s ... it was the one opportunity for ranchers' families to get together with friends and neighbors they did not often see ... a badly needed day off for socializing.
As an adult, married to a police officer and working as a dispatcher in Sheridan, I had a slightly different view of things ... remember well some of the altercations that took place on Main Street. One bar on one side was the "cowboy bar" ... the bar across the street was the "coal miners bar" and things could get pretty western at times. However, it was never dull.
I'd really like to see something happen in one of the books at one of the small town rodeos ... the ones where they still have the wild horse races, wild cow milkings and relay races with local "fast horses".
I'm not going to whine that you are not writing fast enough ... you aren't, but I also have to assume you would like to have some sort of life other than sitting behind a word processor ... but I am so looking forward to another visit with the people "back home" ...
Grand marshall
Craig,
What parade should get the ex-Governor Spitzer as its marshal this year?
Mugsy
Craig Johnson's Blog
Waiting impatiently for your new book, but in the meantime reading your hilarious blog about policing in New York is a great stopgap. Thanks for your memories!
Mary
Hilarious, huh?
Well, you had to be there. As for the next book, not sure if you noticed, but as I said to another blog responder, the first chapter is in the back of KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED paperback. So go out and get that and you'll have a stop-gap and a lender copy.
All the best,
Craig
Craig! Exciting stuff to see
Craig!
Exciting stuff to see you have written a blog! Yay for us! Cannot WAIT until your new book is out. Write more stuff soon!
Blog posts
I blog, therefore I am. The new book, ANOTHER MAN'S MOCCASINS (Viking) is out June 2 (May 29 on sale date). The first chapter is in the back of the paperback of KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED (Penguin), so you can get the idea of what AMM is about and have a lender copy of the third in the series. All the best,
Craig
Craig and the dueling vomit
That's an unforgettable image, Craig. I lived in Manhattan around that time, and some parades you avoided because they bunged up traffic or generally made life inconvenient, but St. Paddy's - that was the day you avoided the block around the Old Town Bar. Or any of the big loft restaurants downtown that attracted the bridge and tunnel crowd. Oh, and kept out of the subways. You didn't want to be stuck underground with large clusters of belligerent or lost drunks. The first would try to pick a fight, and the others would ask directions and lean in very very close..
Parades and vomitus
Like the third man in a hockey fight, I believe I was the big loser--just trying to mediate and then you get chucked into the penalty box. I would've avoided it too, except it was my job. Maybe the vomit incident started the pull to do something different and live somewhere else. All the best,
Craig
Parades
Hi Craig-o... it's been a while since you've been home huh? West Virginia has parades to ya' know? Not sure where because I've never seen one but I do remember one time in Chicago we went to a Macy's parade and it was like 20 below and snowing and windy and you couldn't hardly see anything for all the trash blowing around but still it was fun.
I'm glad they finally turned you lose on the net my friend.... be careful, there are people reading what you say.
All the best,
Mike.
Parades is parades is parades
Personally I always judge a parade by its music and not its trash. Somehow in a big city, it always is either 20 below or a hundred-and five-above, or it seems like it is. All the best,
Craig