Matt's Blog July 3, 2008

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Wood Acres 4th of July Parade

"Second Annual Wood Acres Parade!"

At this year's Parade, they touted the 50th Anniversary of the Parade. Perhaps that is so, I'm sure there is someone out there who will remember when the very first Parade was held, I would love to know.

In any event, I started hearing from neighborhood kids that the big deal was to decorate your bicycle. That meant I was going to need to HAVE a bicycle, so I bugged my parents who rightly pointed that I didn't know how to RIDE a bike yet but it was about time I learned. Decorating bikes back then involved weaving decorative streamers through the spokes of the bike and then attaching baseball or playing cards to the spokes with clothes pins. The cards would flutter as you rode the bike and make a delightful racket. Horns and bells on the handle bars contributed to the cacophony of sound as well.

The Parade in those days left the Triangle and traversed up Welborn, turning onto Gloster and into the Park. What a short distance compared to the "Bataan Death March" that is the Parade route of today which goes all the way down Ramsgate, all the way up Cromwell and then all the way over Welborn Dr. Now that I no longer have little kids, I delight in watching parents struggle their way up Welborn Dr. in 90 degree heat, following some sort of wagon, wishing to God that Chuck Wexler ( the perennial Uncle Sam of course) would go just a LITTLE BIT FASTER! It always makes me smile.

I seem to recall a bullhorn for amplification. There were fabulous races and contests. I always loved that competition, which of course was age specific. I was pretty darned competitive even back then and was faster than anybody my age….except for the girls, who always were faster than the boys!

My dad had been a great baseball player when he was younger. He ended up spending his entire service during the Korean War, playing baseball for the Marines. Of course, in 1957, he was only 27 years old and he could still throw a softball a mile. The softball toss was the finale of the competitions held up on the field and I can vividly remember my dad competing, mostly with teenagers and kids in their early 20's. I can also remember the competition coming down to my dad and one very young, huge, strapping young fellow. Not surprisingly, I remember my dad winning, perhaps that was not really the case, but 5-year olds always think there dad will win everything.

In subsequent years in the late 50's and early '60's a few interesting events took place on the 4th of July in Wood Acres. My father was the President of the Wood Acres Citizens Assoc in 1961 (you can look it up in the directory!). He somehow arranged for the Army marching band to march in the parade. That was a fabulous sound! Deane was also a drummer, and the legendary "Mass. Ave. Irregulars" made several appearances on the back of a flat-bed truck during those late '50's/early '60's Parades. Bourne Upham, who lived at 5901 Cranston, played the stand up bass, Ruel Baker, who lived at 6007 played sax, Art Laney, who lived at 5702 Gloster played the trumpet, and the legendary Don Mackin, who lived at 6205 Mass. Ave. right up until a few years ago, filled out the sound on piano. To this day, I meet former residents of Wood Acres who start by saying, "I remember when your dad played the drums at the Wood Acres parade on the back of a truck…." The joy of music transcends the decades.

Finally, I had a friend named David Gregory (no, not THAT David Gregory!) who lived at 6123 Wynnwood. His father was a Civil War re-enactor. Damn if the guy didn't access to a canon and he brought it to the Parade one year and blew that thing off a number of times up at the Park. Wow, what an explosion that thing made! Today, the police would be called and noise violations would be threatened within minutes.
As we prepare for yet another Parade in Wood Acres, it strikes me just how much it means to people. I often see dozens of people lining the Parade route who no longer live in Wood Acres. They return, year after year, recapturing a bit of their youth. The memories flow, back to a time of innocence, perhaps when they were younger, perhaps to a time when their kids were little ones. Borrowing liberally and selectively from Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams:

"They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. It'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

The character was referring to the baseball experience of course. But the same sentiment can very easily be applied to our 4th of July traditions in Wood Acres. It is the passing, from generation to generation; of the shared experience we call "a community." It is the very best of what Wood Acres is and will always be.

MM

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