Thursday, December 14, 2006
Back in the Days When a Parade Was Kind of Dangerous...
A recent comment from IPLawGuy merited its own post. It regards the homecoming parade at our alma mater, and my suggestion that we had both "ruined" that parade by (1) his setting a float on fire (twice, actually), and (2) my accidentally reversing the parade at its mid-point a few years later:
I hardly think we "ruined" one of America's lamest parades. No, I think we enhanced its reputation for whackiness.
This is a parade where the Honorary Grand Marshall my Freshman year was Gordon Jump, the guy who played the General Manager on WKRP in Cincinatti.
Here's what it was like: One fraternity always made a float that looked like a Shark, to commemorate the movie Jaws.. They were still doing this a good 8 years after the movie came out. Another stuck a bunch of tree limbs on a flat bed and rolled it with toilet paper... every year. Yet a different fraternity always had a viking boat that they pulled down the street, while dressed in viking gear. At least a couple of times the southern group sat a flatbed with a big generator driven stereo playing southern rock and the football frat pushed a bunch of lawnmowers.
Us, well, we had a, um, "theme" every year too. One year we had a mushroom cloud on a football field. The next year it was, uh, two shafts, or um "mushroom clouds." The one representing W&M was taller and wider and more upright. The one representing our opponent, Harvard, was shorter, and not so, shall we say, erect. That was the year "a spark from the catalytic converter" set the thing on fire in Colonial Williamsburg. My Satellite was also in the parade. I still have a photo of our friend Roger standing on its hood holding a keg over his head. Nothing says "College" to me more than that photo.
The following year we were banned from the parade.
After I graduated they had a Roman column with a football helmet, a bug spray can with two bugs on the side (the year Prof. Osler backed up the parade)...
Comments:
<< Home
As usual, you are doing the urban legend thing. I only burned down the float once... AFTER the parade.
"Fat Kenny" the guy on the back of my car imitating Roger, but sans Keg, was the one who, uh, used a lighter to set the float on...I mean, watched the spark from the catalytic converter set the float on fire during the parade.
BTW, that's not me driving the car.
Did you know the float was actually burned two years before as well? That time someone trashed it during the night after they finished building and before the parade.
"Fat Kenny" the guy on the back of my car imitating Roger, but sans Keg, was the one who, uh, used a lighter to set the float on...I mean, watched the spark from the catalytic converter set the float on fire during the parade.
BTW, that's not me driving the car.
Did you know the float was actually burned two years before as well? That time someone trashed it during the night after they finished building and before the parade.
# posted by 
: 11:30 AM
: 11:30 AM
two years ago, one float for baylor homecoming was a giant toilet with a tornado-like water column coming out of it because the football team played the Iowa Cyclones. Accordingly the float's theme was "Flush the Cyclones". I still can't believe people got away with driving a giant toilet down 5th street...
# posted by : 1:03 PM
: 1:03 PM
When LSU played the USC Gamecocks for Homecoming, we received strict guidelines on what was and what was not appropriate from the university.
Somehow, our "Choke the Chickens" display made it past the censors.
Somehow, our "Choke the Chickens" display made it past the censors.
My fraternity at Tulane had their own krewe, sort of. We gathered early on the traditional morning, after a mandatory 3 day bender, down at the pier near Cafe du Monde. Assorted derelicts and nutjobs would gather for the free booze and sign on to march w/ us. Departure time was announced by a bonfire on the pier, and then we would push a canoe filled w/ booze and mardi gras beads down Desire Street while screaming "Stella!!!" at unsuspecting passerby and pelting them w/ beads. It was a surprisingly popular tradition among a certain offbeat crowd.
# posted by : 2:52 PM
: 2:52 PM
So, when you were marching up Desire Street, tossing the beads to the offbeat crowd, I guess you were relying on the kindness of strangers. Or at least their tolerance.
We passed out candy to kids and cute college girls.
Not surprisingly, the College banned that sort of thing, along with the carrying of hip flasks during the parade.
Post a Comment
We passed out candy to kids and cute college girls.
Not surprisingly, the College banned that sort of thing, along with the carrying of hip flasks during the parade.
# posted by : 5:01 PM
: 5:01 PM << Home
