6.15.2008

What's The Deal?

We went to the neighboring town's parade today. We just happened to be standing by the two state patrol officers that were "monitoring" things. At the beginning of the parade, a Hummer with some National Guard men and women rolled on through. There was one guy standing up through the sunroof type thing throwing balls to all the kids. One of the officers went and told him that he couldn't do that. I had mixed feelings about it. I understand that getting hit in the side of the head with a rubber ball wouldn't feel all that good. On the other hand, it's not like they were chucking them into the crowds....they were tossing them to the kids about 4 feet from them.
Then, the next few floats were a whole slew of fire trucks. Kids were in the cab and up on top throwing candy. The same officer went to each and everyone of those fire trucks and told them that they can't throw candy from the trucks.
What!??? Isn't that one of the main points of a parade - to throw candy? Is this something new? Did I miss an article on msn.com about some kid that lost a limb by getting hit with a flying pack of smarties? Sheesh.

5 comments:

jenny said...

looks like you literally had the fun police at the parade. cripe.

hope you had a nice weekend otherwise! :)

Jaci said...

Well, as a 7 year former Wheels, Wings and Water Festival Parade Co-Director in St. Cloud, MN (yes, you're reading that correctly. Our term ended 2 years ago), all floats in the parades are told numerous times that there is NO throwing anything from the floats.

You can toss candy from people walking behind/near the vehicle, but nothing can come off the float itself for safety sake. So, it's totally lame--but someone somewhere did sue for pegging their kid in the head with a sucker & now all parades have to be strictly monitored.

Not saying I agree, or that it's not stupid...but that's what everyone is told...and everyone STILL does it. If the guard would have been walking & handing out balls/candy/whatever, it's all good!

There you go--a piece of useless parade knowledge from your white trash parade directing friend!

Jaime Cox said...

wtf? stupid!

the last parade we were at down here had candy throwing... but this is the south and things are a little slower:)

Jill said...

I agree...
how did we all survive as children when we were doing things like (GET THIS) having fun!!! Yikes! Can you imagine? Fun?

But actually, I don't think the throwing-candy-from-the floats/vehicles has anything to do with the candy hitting someone. It actually has to do with kids running out INTO the street up to the vehicles/floats...and yes, I'm sure someone, somewhere, ran out and got ran over by the truck or float. And thus, candy now has to be "handed" out by people walking along the floats.

And what a pooper on the parade, those cops. Seriously. I think I would have been afraid to let my kids even giggle or wave. Maybe that wouldn't be allowed either!

Travis said...

i know!!!! i'm thinking about boycotting all parades and making a special trip up to fin-town for the st. urho's parade every year since i hope that parade hasn't been infected with the fun police yet :)