The City of Babel should stick to fireworks. It does good fireworks. It has work to do on its Santa Claus parade. The city is so embarrassed by its parade for Santa that it holds it after dark.
Tired, hungry and cranky children should not have to wait until after dark for an all-to-brief view of dear old Santa. In the dark, you have no way of reading the signs saying who sponsored what. Nor do you really see many floats at their best. The only one that was well identified was the one for the new Member of Provincial Parliament for Babel, whose name was almost as big as the old fire truck on which he was riding. And we had no flowers to throw.
It was just as well we could not read who was sponsoring what because we would have liked to talk to the people sponsoring the truck load behind the small pipe band. The pipers were doing their best but the stupid truck driver behind them kept adding his discordant air horn to the cacophony.
There was another very large marching band in smart yellow capes and we could not tell if they were from the Knights of Columbus or the Loyal Orange Lodge. It was suggested that with the size of the band, the two organizations might have got together this year. In any case, we enjoyed the piece they were playing.
The organizers of Santa’s float had gotten smart this year. There were high intensity lights mounted on the front of his sleigh so the little tykes could see Santa. He was a good one too and he talked to the children as he went by.
It was a fair crowd on the Lakeshore considering it was after dark. The parade had to wind its way downtown to the tree lighting ceremony and fireworks. The fireworks were brief but excellent, as always.
-30-
Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]