The excitement builds for weeks before the parades.
Slowly, the sides of the route are lined with
orange fencing, a little more appearing each day.
Tractors pull the viewing stands, bedecked
with festival colors, to their places along the road.
On the day of the first parade,
the traffic crawls in the afternoon,
past the workers setting up little booths,
stretching their striped roofs into place
and placing purple and pink fuzzy monkeys in little piles.
The signs cry out:
Fried Oreos!
Candy Cupboard!
At twilight, the horns are wailing their
ululations and the music explodes, joyously, from car stereos.
No one minds the rain,
or the chill,
or the mud,
or the sounds a little too loud.
And then the parade is here, marching and dancing
Flickering
No one looks down,
because worse than missing a string of beads
is getting hit in the head with one.
How does your community express joy? What are the festivals that unite you?
What celebration do you wait patiently for each year?
1 comment:
cool photo essay. i like the sense of being in the crowd, the motion, the busy-ness.
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