Small City Doings, Part III

(You might want to read the postings below first so you understand this one.  Small City Doings, Part I and Small City Doings Part II )

Who doesn’t love a parade?  Its one of those things that kids don’t have to pull Mom and Dad out the door to go see – most folks love a parade.  The parade was to start at 6:30, but folks began to line the route hours before the start.  Popcorn to munch on, and lots of barbecue too.

(Go ahead – click on the photos.  If you do, you’ll see a larger version of the pictures.)

The last rays of the sun were still in the western clouds as the fire trucks, police motorcycles, and other noise making contraptions passed by, followed by the King and Queen and their Royal Court.  The evening was a little chilly (for South Texas – the temperatures were in the high 50s) and I wondered how cold the girls would be by the end of the parade.  I don’t think they cared.

One of the local VFW Posts had this Color Guard made up of old timers like me.  As I was taking the shot, a thought came to me – so I turned around very quickly to look at the crowd.  Sure enough, the crowd came to its feet to render honors to our flag.  That impressed me.

And – a parade has to have bands.  There were four high school bands and at least three junior high school bands.  I guess they had to do a couple of rehearsals to get ready for the parade - football season has been over for two months.  But they were all proud and loud.

Lots of pretty girls.  All the duchesses rode atop convertibles, including the Duchess of Plumbago.  (The Mystery Guest Blogger tells me her gown is the color of the flower.)  They smiled, alternated arms to keep waving, and pretended they weren’t cold.

 

This duchess cracked me up – as I approached her car, I saw the cowboy boot poking out from under her gown.  How “Texas” can you get, eh?

Some floats were very elaborate, as was this one – lots of flowers and well lit up entered by the nearby city of Hidalgo.  It’s a bit of self-promotion as it depicts the annual Festival of Lights held in Hidalgo during the Christmas holidays – and is good advertising to the many Winter Texans here for the season.

Speaking of Winter Texans, they are an important factor in the economy of Mission, Texas, (and the rest of deep South Texas) and an extremely important part of the Citrus Fiesta.  In fact, the parade had two separate categories just for Winter Texans to compete in – and still another category for “Golf Carts”, which was for floats built on the golf carts owned by almost all Winter Texans.  I just had to get this shot of our Canadian neighbors having a lot of fun, eh?

A lot of the floats had kids on them – what could more fun than watching a parade than being in the parade?  This float was from the Mission Police Department.  On it was a Color Guard made up of the some of the officer’s kids.  This young man took his duties seriously.  He would not drop his salute until I let my camera hang around my neck and return his salute.  His Mom and Dad must be very proud.

And horses – you just gotta have horses in a parade.  There was a group from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church called itself “The Cavalry of Christ.”  This rider saw the camera, and just put on a show for me!

It was a fun night, though this blogger was a tired old man by the time I got home.  In all, I took over 1,000 photos during the day – and that many an hour in front of the computer.  But the newspaper ran an entire section devoted to the Citrus Fiesta, and three pages of nothing but photos.

Yeah – it was fun.

Comments

[Russ]

Man, you get some great seats with that job of yours! Great shots. Small town celebrations are cool and right now high 50's sounds pretty good.