when you march in the parade you start out way down on mill street and go under the bridge, then go all the way up highway 51 which is south illinois avenue turning into north illinois avenue, and finally you turn right on jackson street and past the longbranch, and turn right again on washington where the parade is officially over and people start wandering off. people line the streets most of the way and this year it wasn't bone-chilling, skin-numbing cold so people were in a good mood and cheered us a lot as we walked. sometimes there were whole crowds of people and everyone was waving. sometimes i heard our names as people we knew called out at us. sometimes my son wandered off or got a little behind the pack due to distraction or whatever and i'd have to kind of fetch him and bring him back into the fold. and once a train came, parallel to the highway we were on, and i could see through the buildings on the main street there, beyond to the tracks, where the usual coal cars and boxcars were passing through town, with their chicago graffiti and occasional "cn" marking which shows that they, like the geese, are from canada.

it was our town, part good part bad, contentious, raucous, but lucky, because this year the cold bitter winter storm waited until just after the parade to come in. i can hear it now, outside my living room window, but i'm home safe and dry, son asleep, glad it's over. got pictures too, which i will upload as soon as possible, because i'm beginning to realize i need a steady flow here, i need to show you what i'm up to, and rather than stealing lazily, for example that grinch below, i could get my camera right in the face of the real grinch, which i did tonight, and bring it to you live, which i will. this town isn't much, but it does have some photo-ops, and in this case you can have them all, i need them for a movie, yes, but that won't be for a while.

once again i parked way up on the north side and walked all the way back, through downtown, to where the parade was starting and hung out with our crowd which is the group from my son's school. another son and my wife were home sick but might not have liked the parade anyway. i however have taken my boys to the parade virtually every year, if they want it, and have done it for seventeen years now, and yes, have noticed that the first weekend in december is often frigid, windy, iced over, bone-chilling, you name it, and they hold it anyway. i heard the story of a high school kid who was promised, if you join marching band, you won't have to march in the lights parade, coldest one in the year, but they retracted their promise and ruined her high-school experience, forcing her to march and freeze her knuckles and knees like generations of other unfortunate area schoolkids. tonight, they didn't seem to be suffering too much. tonight they were lucky and they knew it, and they picked up the construction blockades and cleared out as fast as they could before the storm came whaling in with its rain and temp-drops ushering in the winter.

found the helsinki complaints choir the other day and was surprised that apparently i'm about the last person to know about this; in fact, people have made complaints choirs around the world but nobody seems to be able to beat the finns for just plain making sweet music while complaining about everyday life. it got me to thinking that it's a kind of december tradition here and on my facebook to have a music revue so i quick slapped that up there along with another that i ran across on my son's site. i'm reflecting on whether i should do another retrospective: songs i've loved, african songs, or complaints songs. or perhaps my own songs. these i would have to make using garage band or whatever, but it would be fun & maybe i could get the boys involved. we have an old tradition of pots & pans orchestras and there are a bunch of songs i'm dying to get down in some kind of format, put them in the sky or wherever, let people hear a little of what's in my mind. i could start with the complaints choir format, but heck, why limit yourself?

i have goals, dreams, lots on my plate, but time is limited. i looked out at the crowds, some of whom i knew, others i merely recognized, and some of course, total strangers. our float was not like the big boys, and we didn't throw candy like the politicians, but people cheered for us, since my son's school is well-known to be kind of hippie-ish, independent, a survivor, and it's always there, it always marches. we waved at people whether they waved back or not; you could hear bands up the street, or cheers, or the train, lots of noise and lots of people talking. the wind was already starting to blow although, at the parade, it still wasn't too cold. walking allows you to see the whole town (in my case twice), and stay warm, and see lots of people, but you miss some of the high-school bands and you miss the sense of whole big floats coming toward you; in our case, we were following our own float and staying well ahead of the next one. the only town in the area, i believe, that would hold its parade in the cold bone-chill season, but, didn't matter. i was proud to be part of it, and my son was ok with marching along just to be part of the group. now, he's sound asleep, and the storm is rolling in.