By CCI Publisher – Scott Whaley
In the newspaper business there are several unpublished “rules” that are followed by most in the business.
The first is that the reporter never becomes part of the story; you never write a news story in first person (except in opinion columns) and you rarely, if ever, voice your opinions on the front page.
What the heck! Venturing outside the box isn’t always bad. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll keep it short.
Sometimes we need something that’s just for fun with no political undertones, a pandemic or the inflated cost of everything we buy.
I’m speaking of the annual Christmas parade last Thursday night. “WOW” is the only word that comes to mind. What a wonderful way to start the holiday season with perfect weather and onlookers lining Main Street to get a good view of what was about to parade by.
There’s much more to planning and implementing the parade than simply lining up everyone at Cash Saver and walking down Main Street. The Chamber of Commerce folks did an outstanding job working out the logistics this year. They don’t get the credit they deserve for some of the things they are involved with, and they outdid themselves this year. The community owes the Chamber a great big pat on the back for this one.
There’s more to a parade than lining everyone up at Cash Saver and telling them to walk down Main Street.
It wasn’t the Macy’s parade by any means, and we didn’t have a 40 ft. tall Kermit balloon, but we did have members of our community build floats, shine up their cars and tractors and get their horses all groomed up. They didn’t have to do this. Most would have said it wasn’t worth the effort and stayed at home.
My granddaughter said the parade was great. Of course, her favorite part was Santa riding on the fire truck. I asked her who was driving the truck and she said, “You know that Rudolph drives the fire truck when Santa rides on it.
Since moving here in 1965, I haven’t attended all the parades, but I remember being an anxious six-year-old sitting on the curb in front of Morgan’s Furniture Store (now City Drug Store) waiting to get a glimpse of Santa Claus riding on the fire truck. Yes, they did have fire trucks way back then, they just weren’t nearly as big or loud.
I’m confident that next year’s parade will be bigger and better and just maybe someone at the Chamber could contact Macy’s about that Kermit balloon. They only use it at Thanksgiving.
