I love a parade

Yesterday was homecoming for our little town, and a lot of folks (including hubby and I) came out to watch the afternoon parade.  The elementary school classes, grades one through six, got to march.  Preschool and kindergarten got to watch from the sidelines.  Hubby and I staked out a spot behind Benjimouse's preschool class and watched the flotilla go by.

While I was in high school I never went to a homecoming parade, nor the game or even the dance.  I never went to a sports event, ever, when I was in school.  Just not my thing.  Plenty of other things to do in a growing suburbia.  But in a small rural town the homecoming game is a bigger deal.  I think it's because out here in the country we don't take our school for granted.  A lot of little towns around us have consolidated and lost their schools.  It happens all the time -- just last year the neighboring town of Bellingham closed its elementary school and consolidated with Ortonville.  It really is a sad thing when a town loses its school.  It's as if the heart and soul of the community go with it. 

Some people in the parade carry buckets of candy along with them, and throw some out to the kids as they walk past.  It took no time at all for the preschool class to catch on to this wondrous fact.  They began to eagerly watch each of the floats going past, and to cry out 'candy!' when they spotted a likely benefactor.  When candy would fly the kids would jump up en masse and scurry out into the road to scavenge the sweets like little black-and-orange vultures.  The teachers had their hands full controlling their flock.

I didn't get a good photo of Number One Son, but here is Number Two waving his pom at us as he walks past.  This was his first year in the parade.  He was so pleased.