OCR Text |
Show : I Love A Parade By BERTHA L. MU1R The two patriotic summer holidays have come and gone, the 4th of July, our nations birthday, and the 24th of July, our states birthday. The parades, of those days, brought to my memory many parades I had seen over the years. I "love a parade," with the marching bands, the waving flags and the cheering people, the beautiful prancing horses and happy children. SOME VERY special features fea-tures I remember of parades I saw and helped with were the floats. One when I was about nine years old. The Woodmen of the World made up a beautiful beau-tiful float to be shown in the big 24th of July Parade in Salt Lake City. Many of the children of the Woodmen's families were all dressed up in white. Their faces scrubbed, (their hair curled if you were a girl). The float was made up on a large wagon pulled by four beautiful beau-tiful gleaming black horses. The harnesses were bright and clean and the horses all brushed with their tails braided. The drivers were members of the Woodmen group. The drivers were dressed in black suits and had tall black hats. EARLY IN the morning we all gathered on the Tabernacle Taber-nacle grounds for the long wagon ride to Salt Lake City. The parade ended at the old Salt Palace in the southern part of the city. Our parents were there to meet us with baskets of food and we spent a happy day at the Salt Palace resort. . TO ME the walls of the building glistened like, magic in the sun light. They were covered with a salt like material. The childrens' eves were filled with happy anticipation an-ticipation of a wonderful day. There were bicycle races, music and all kinds of fun, and especially cotton candy. Then there was the long wagon ride home at the end of a glorious day. ANOTHER MEMORY was a beautiful float decorated with huge baskets of gladioli in every color. The flowers were donated by Emil Lund, manager of the Lund Floral Company. The young girls were dressed in costumes to match the vivid colors of the flowers. DESPITE THE terrific heat the girls and the flowers looked beautiful long enough to cover the parade route and to win a first place award in the division of beautiful and original floats. I wish I could remember the other women who helped with the float. Anyway we won a prize and our daughters had an opportunity oppor-tunity to participate. One 4th of July the mothers on our street planned a marching feature for the parade. We gathered up costumes cos-tumes which represented the various nationalities of our forefathers. Fifteen boys and girls dressed as representative representa-tive of many nations marched in the parade. I USED my food allowance to pay a local painter to paint a large sign on which was written "America the Melting Pot," The boys nailed the sign to two long poles. These were carried by boy scouts. Some of the children carried American flags, and others old cans painted for drums. Brownie, the shepherd dog, dearly loved by all the neighborhood neigh-borhood children carried a little jug of water over his back, just as the Swiss dogs of the alps we had read about. . Well our entry won first place. THE PRIZE was tickets for all to attend the town movie that night. So fifteen patriotic kids attended the show for free and a number of patriotic parents bought tickets so they could take the kids to the show. What a day. I still have folks remind me of that glorious 4th of July when our kids won first place for their entry "America The Melting Pot." |