kayaking on Loch Leven near Glencoe, Scotland, 2018

kayaking on Loch Leven near Glencoe, Scotland, 2018

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Parades

One thing southwest Louisiana and southwest Pennsylvania have in common is their love of parades. Pittsburgh especially loves parades, but I can honestly say, in my 25 years living in Pittsburgh, I never once attended a downtown parade. I didn't want to fight the crowds or fuss with parking. Or stand in the cold. Besides, WPXI aired the Celebrate the Season parade on TV. Here in SWLA, Lake Charles has a parade for every occasion, as does each surrounding smaller town, our own Moss Bluff included. Parades celebrate Christmas, Homecoming, Independence Day, and festivals such as Contraband Days, to name a few. Lake Charles has at least four or five parades for Mardi Gras alone. Even the dogs have their own parade.

We went to the Lake Charles Christmas parade today. (60 degrees and sunny) Andrew and Eric rode on our church's float. This photo of First Presbyterian's float was taken at last year's Christmas parade.

Oh, the pageantry. The parade marshall was followed by the Harley Club. What a lot of bikes. Looked like fun. Soon after came our mayor, Randy Roach. There were high school marching bands, cajun bands, radio station vans. Floats carried a brownie troop, the Little League champs, church groups, daycares, and festival queens. Candy and colorful beads flew from every float. There were a couple pirate ships, practicing for Contraband Days, I guess. And naturally, Santa followed behind in a firetruck. Merry Christmas!

4 comments:

Mindy Blanchard said...

cool...I avoid parades.

Louisianian parades tend to include a lot of drinking of alcoholic beverages. And since I'm usually too sober I get pissed off too easily surrounded by all of the drunken merriment.

But the church float looked fun!

Angie Kay Dilmore said...

Maybe those drunken parades are more with Mardi Gras. I didn't see any imbibing yesterday.

Mindy Blanchard said...

I forget Lake Charles and Lafayette people are different. In Cajun Country they drink cause its a day of the week. lol

Angie Kay Dilmore said...

Well, now that you mention that, in regards to my previous post about the poor health status, the one thing in La.'s favor was a low percentage of binge drinking. And it occured to me that maybe there's a low percentage of binge drinkers because they drink steadily all the time!