Homecoming

     Everyone loves a parade.

     In my youth, there were always two parades in the fall of the year, September or maybe October.  From sixth grade on, both parades found me in the marching band. 

      We were always invited to attend band day at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where the band marched in the parade, took in the football game and participated in the playing “Fight CU” with all the other bands in the stadium.

     The other parade was our school’s homecoming parade.  It was an impressive parade for a small school.  (Or maybe it is impressive in my memory while in reality it’s like Harold Hill’s first band.)  Every class was expected to field a float.  Even the three elementary classrooms had some sort of entry in the parade.

     The six elementary grades were grouped into three classrooms, first and second combined, third and fourth, and fifth and sixth grades.  When I was in first grade, there must have been 26 first and second graders.  Mrs. Boil assigned each of us a letter of the alphabet.  We had a sign hanging around our neck with our assigned letter on it.  We each carried something that began with our letter.

     My letter was “O”.  I had two oranges pierced with strings and hung around my neck bandolier style.  We marched in alphabetical order down the streets as part of the parade.  I don’t remember any of the many  floats my class built over the years. 

     I remember riding a bicycle in the parade once.  The bike had crepe paper threaded around the wheel spokes.  I had stuffed a gunnysack with rags and was sitting on it.  The dummy was supposed to represent the opposing team in the football game that afternoon.  I suppose I had some kind of sign, but I don’t remember what it was.

     I took up band in the sixth grade.   All band members were expected to march with the band in the parade.  No time for riding a float or a bicycle. 

     The week leading up to homecoming was exciting.  Every night we would gather to work on our float.  The float was usually built on a farmer’s wheat truck, or a pickup, or maybe even a tractor.  One year, our class used our old GMC truck.

    Float building was like most every other class project—three or four people did the work and the rest goofed off.  Most years, I was in the goof-off group. 

     The usual construction consisted of some kind of wood framework built over and around the truck cab.  The wood frame would be covered with chicken wire.  A similar frame would hang down from the base of the truck bed’s sides and cover the truck’s flanks, including the wheels.

     Once the chicken wire was attached, then there was plenty to do for everybody.  The chicken wire was either crocheted with proper color (purple and gold) crepe paper streamers, or was stuffed with colored paper napkins.  Crepe paper streamers could be attached to the wood frame using tape or staples without the chicken wire, but the guaranteed breeze would pretty much make a mess of such lightly secured paper.  Stuffing napkins took a lot of time.  Streamers or napkins in chicken wire were much more wind-proof than streamers on their own.

     On the back of the truck would be some scene, sometimes with live actors taking part as the float moved along the way.  There was always a slogan somewhere on the float side.  The class responsible for building the float would have their graduation year either on the front or rear of the float.  “Class of ’65.”  It was a lot of work for a fifteen or twenty minute trip through a few streets in town.

     After the parade, the floats would line up on a field adjacent to the football field, so folks could get another look at them.  Someone would judge the floats and award first, second and third place.         

     The parade usually started about ten o’clock.  Some group such as Lions or band mothers would serve lunch as a fund-raiser.  It probably took a couple of hours to line the floats up, have the parade, then line the floats up again.  Serving lunch to the crowd always took some time, but there was plenty of spare time for us to get up our own football game, or some other sport activity, maybe baseball if the parade was early enough in September and the World Series was still in the news.

     At two o’clock, the football game kicked off.  In junior high, I might have actually watched the football game, but in grade school, we were always much more interested in our own game.

      At halftime of the football game, there was a crowning ceremony for the homecoming king and queen.  The queen would be dressed up in her finery, maybe last year’s prom gown.  The king usually was dressed up in a football uniform, and was excused long enough to get his own crown and to kiss the queen out in the middle of the football field in front of God and everybody.  Then he was back to the halftime meeting with the coach and the team in the locker room.

     When the game was completed, it was time to clean up.  For the floats, that job usually fell to the family who had donated the truck.  Somehow, all those willing workers of the week before had disappeared.  All the paper had to be disposed of.  Usually the wood and chicken wire went to the dump, too.  Too much work getting the staples, tape, nails, out of the chicken wire.  Everyone was in a bit of a hurry, too.  There was more to come.

     All the folks took a three or four hour break from homecoming.  It was time to go home, do the chores, clean up and return to school.  There was the homecoming dance.  Many years, the dance was preceded by the homecoming banquet.

     In those days, homecoming really was homecoming.  The alumni held meetings, made speeches at the banquet, celebrated with the home folks. The same with the dance.  It was a community dance.  The alumni were the honored guests.

     As grade school kids, homecoming was over after the football game.  But somewhere along about the eighth grade, we were allowed to attend the dance.  That was the big time!

     Behind the scenes, parents and community members did a lot of work, preparing for, serving, and cleaning up after the banquet.  The dance was held in the same place as the banquet, the school gym, so the chairs and tables had to be removed before the dance could get rolling.  The janitor probably got stuck with cleaning up after the dance.

     As Sherwood Anderson observed in Winesburg, Ohio, the people worked pretty hard at having a good time.  Homecoming must have been the best of times.