Parade Rest

With my grandchildren romping about me this morn, I turned on the TV to see the preparations for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Suddenly I was transported back in time 35 years or so to when I used to take my children to vintage versions of this same procession.  We were living in Stuyvesant Town on the lower east side of Manhattan and, after breakfast, we would bundle our children up and I would walk them over to Broadway in the low twenties to get a front row spot for watching this extravaganza.

The parade always consisted of many marching bands, floats, and huge helium balloons held down by phalanxes of Macy employees dressed to match the theme of their balloon.  The balloons I remember most were Underdog, the Sesame Street characters, and Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Usually there were also lots of clowns and unicyclists handing out candy and trinkets to the children.  It was all right out of Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street ... but without Margaret O'Brien.

And I remember that it was almost always bitingly cold ... so getting the kids to stay for the finale was generally a bit dicey.  But we usually did and when Santa Claus went by waving and Ho Ho Ho-ing we knew that we could then trudge back home and thaw out.  Entering our apartment, we were greeted with the wondrous smells of pumpkin pies cooling and the Thanksgiving  turkey cooking in the oven.  I would then generally have a cup of hot coffee and settle in to TV-watch some college football with Christmas music wafting out of the stereo.  What bliss it was!