Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Parade Rest

I had heard of the Christmas Parade in Hendersonville from a few people during the day. They thought I should be in it. Not thinking anymore about it, I was surprised when I rolled over the rise approaching town to see the main thoroughfare lined with thousands of people and blocked by a wall of police vehicles.
Nice (the dog), usually quiet, becomes a barking ,lunging, excited mess of a dog at parades.
This is because the first parade we were in we had lined up behind The Bubble Truck. This thing was covered with tubes and whirligigs that pumped out hundred of bubbles large and small. The entire parade Nice (the dog) had one thing on his mind and that was to stop the evil bubble truck.
It was a Halloween Parade. I was wearing a Gargoyle costume with wings which opened to eight feet and a tail that dragged on the ground. Holding at bay a frothing, barking, lunging beast added added an extra dimension to the ghoulish imagery. All through the parade young children and many adults who knew Nice came out on the parade route to pet him even though he was acting as if he wanted to eat the Bubble Truck.
I suppose all this positive attention ingrained in him that during any parade his job was to bark and lunge as if he were going to bite the rear bumper from the Bubble Truck.
Unfortunately the Hendersonville Christmas parade passed over the bridge of a lake. Too far to walk around the lake, we took a rest at the city park on the lake alongside the bridge and waited for the festivities to end. I had to patch a hole in the fabric of the World. All the while Nice obsessed over the sound of the woman master-of-ceremonies' voice booming over the loudspeaker announcing each of the slow moving parade entries, filling the gaps between them with disingenuous enthusiastic banter.
I repaired the World.
When the parade ended and the sun had nearly set, the crowds cleared from the sidewalk on the bridge. We continued on toward Nashville. By the time the traffic that had backed up for two hours finally cleared to normal, darkness had fallen.
We walked into the night, meeting many folks despite the lack of light, until we were to the outskirts of the Nashville Mtro bus route in Madison.
We got a ride safely back to the van that was seventeen miles back in Gallatin and "worlds" away in terms of scenery. We had started the day from an idillic historic town, lined with wreaths and christmas lighting. We ended the day across from a liqueur store with bars over the windows and side streets ornamented by police surveillance cameras with blinking blue lights. I felt equally as safe at both.









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