Parade Junkie?

When a parade in paradise starts late you get some shaved ice, settle back with your toes in the grass and sit around talking story. Forty five minutes isn’t a matter of life and death or hypothermia.

The same can’t be said for a Christmas parade in upstate New York where temperatures have been hard pressed to climb into the twenties.

The only saving factor was the sun, but the clouds kept creeping over the low hanging orb so flashes on warmth were scarce. Along the route kids played oblivious to the cold. Everyone seemed numb to the artic air that swept down the street toward the Hudson River where ice chunks built up along the falls under the Glens Falls bridge.

I couldn’t tell if the tears in my eyes were due to the bite in the wind or for my longing for Hawaiian breezes. I listened to the hawkers rattle their stolen shopping carts full of Chinese toys down the street, stiff rubber tires grinding against the frigid asphalt. My God the guys gripped the steel of the car with bare hands.

Before the honor guards passed by the gas station selling fuel for $2.03 I couldn’t feel my fingers. My toes felt as if a stone crusher mashed my piggies and wouldn’t let up. The pain rolled my eyes.

No beautiful Miss Kona Coffee Queen and her court. Grizzled faced Hog riders rumbled by the assembled parade watches dressed in parkas, hoods, scarves and thermal underwear. I was too. Dressed in the same manner as if I woke at Everest Base Camp.

It is late November. Temperatures 10 – 15 degrees below normal.










By the time the hamburger floated by, I was ready to jump into the deep fat fryer.

"Come on Dad, it's time to go. Aren't you cold?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go watch a football game."