After 25 years, I enjoy watching Richmond's last parade. Marching bands, floats, city notables riding in open top cars, clowns, flags, and balloons.
For years there have been parades of military drill teams and R.O.T.C. students marching down Broad Street to crowds of children sitting on the curbs and waving at their brothers and sisters.
Floats covered with paper flowers, pretty girls in gowns waving and smiling to the sidewalks filled with fathers and mothers presenting their children to the season. Trucks pulling the floats are covered with signs advertising their dealerships, showing their community involvement to sell more cars.
In earlier days, there were radio disc jockeys, Miss Richmond beauty queen, a little guy in a red coat and black hat calling out "Call for Phillip Morris" while football players threw out free packs of cigarettes. Even floats of the Literary Club of John Marshell High School and the cheerleaders of Thomas Jefferson High School .
And this year with over 100 entries, there was no entry by the local newspaper? Still the marching bands, floats, trolleys, smiling faces, and clowns, but not presence of the local city newspaper.
Is this the future?
25 years ago I did the artwork for the logo as a pro-bono job for the Jaycees.
If nothing else comes out of this season, I can still enjoy the parade. It makes the town I live in smile for a few hours, even in the cold.
Happy Holidays.
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