Tradition

Valley of Flowers.

St. Louisans like tradition, real, honest-to-goodness tradition. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That might be our second motto after “The Show Me State”. Parades also might be one of those factors. Even if you really don’t care about parades at all – i.e. Collette and Carrie-Bri – you’d never think of skipping it because, that’s just what you do every first Sunday in May. No questions asked.

Anyway, after we had carpooled down to Grandma’s in the Joy Bus, we took our stations in the grass alley where the table was already arranged with BBQ, mac and cheese, potato salad, and tubs of ice cold root beer and ginger ale. Plenty of time to spare before the first marching band hit the asphalt.

Meanwhile, Puck had chugged an entire can of Canada Dry Ginger Ale. I hardly turned away, and it was gone.

“Dude.”

Then came the candy. Whirling through the air from passing floats, sugar torpedoes, right into Puck’s waiting hands. I guess after awhile Puck even became aware of hitting the limit of acceptable sugar consumption.

“Uh oh. I’m standing in the sun and eating candy,” he told Oxbear seriously. “The mix of sun and candy makes you throw up. And barf.”

He didn’t though. Just kept waving at the dance teams and Vietnam vets as they paraded down St. Francois to the end of the route. Occasionally passed a Dubble Bubble back to his aunts.

Meanwhile, the marching bands continued to march past, dripping in sweat inside the baking shells of dark-colored uniforms.

“Did kids pass out in marching band when you were in high school, Uncle Mo?” Carrie asked him.

“Some of them got heat stroke, sure.” This turned into the story of how, when Uncle Mo was with Marching Mizzou, he was walking along one day in his uniform and some crazy kids in a car drove by.

“Dad?” Carrie accused him.

“Wasn’t me!”

“And these guys yelled at me, ‘Hey, kid!’ So I looked up, and – wham! Hamburger! Right in the face! I felt like the lowest of lowlife on Earth.”

Seems Uncle Mo’s reputation has improved somewhat since college days in marching band.

It’s been one of those warm running around outside kind of weeks for Puck where he’s been plunked in the shower almost every evening. As I walked by the bathroom door, I could hear him toweling off while singing to himself, “You put the lime in the coconut and mix it all up…”