Fourth publicity

Mary Beth Smetzer called Mike Musick who called me wanting to know when the Ester Fourth of July parade was so she could put it in her calendar of events for the News-Miner. My immediate reaction was--gads, don't publicize it!--but I wasn't entirely sure about that. Mike didn't know exactly how he felt about it, either, apparently--"Do you want her number?" he asked. I said no, but I kept thinking about it. Do we really want a ton of Fairbanksans showing up? Do we want to advertise it? I mean, it's fun having an audience, but it's not a commercial event, it's just fun. And it's just us and our neighbors, goofing around for ourselves and our neighbors.

Fairbanks doesn't even have a parade any more. The last few years, according to people who've been to it and told me their (mostly negative) impressions of it (I heard about this from folks at the Ester 4th of July celebration, so this is a self-limiting group that had given up on the Fairbanks version), Fairbanks has had a fairly militaristic and commercial display/festival at Alaskaland (a.k.a. "Pioneer Park"). It's turned people off, so they come out to Ester to watch the parade, where satire and foolishness and spur-of-the-moment costuming are the norm, and sacred cows and politicians are regularly lampooned, as befits a proper jest.

I remember being in the Fairbanks parade once when I was little. It was great fun--until it started raining. Then it was awful. (I was a little kid and they wouldn't let us get off the float and go somewhere warm and dry right away--a BIG mistake with a bunch of four-year-olds on board.) But I loved the parades: floats and jugglers and music and more. But apparently not any longer. Too bad. I can't say for myself what the Fairbanks celebration is like, because I haven't been to it for a long, long time.

What I don't understand is why, say, Goldstream and Two Rivers and College and all these other communities don't organize their own little parades and parties and whatnot. Especially tightknit places like Goldstream or Chena Hot Springs--who needs a big humongous expensive thing? Just do it! Have fun! Looks like North Pole is having one, though! And Salcha. Good for them.

All you need for a parade is a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's three people in costume, and poof! You've got a parade. Easy.