In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [76]
Of course by twelve-thirty we are still milling around, noses running, and way off in the distance, always, the sound of some band or other playing something, and still we stood. The thin trickle of glockenspiel music came back to us through the frozen trees and bushes as the Musicians’ Local Marching Band tuned up. Megaphones bellowing, cars racing back and forth over the disorganized line of march, until finally, slowly and painfully, we moved off. Wilbur Duckworth shot us aggressively into our assigned march position, and we were under way.
Rumors had gone from band to band, from drummer to drummer, that the Mayor up ahead on the reviewing stand was drunk, that we were delayed while they sobered him up, that he had chased a lady high school principal around the lectern. But these are just Parade rumors.
The Thanksgiving Day Parade is really a Christmas rite. Behind us on a huge white float rode Santa Claus, throwing confetti at the crowd as we moved through town.
It’s hard to tell from a Marcher’s standpoint just what Parade Watchers think, if anything. As we got closer to the center of town, the crowd grew thicker; muffled, hooded, mittened, ear-muffed, gray staring faces of sheet metalworkers, iron puddlers; just standing in the dead zero air. This is where you begin to learn about Humanity. Their eyes look like old oysters. They just look. Once in a while you see a guy smoking a cigar; he spits, and from time to time a kid throws a penny or a Mary Jane or a Cherry Bomb into the bell of your sousaphone.
All the bands, of course, are marching to their own cadence. Up ahead the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Whales shuffles on. In the cold winter of the Midwest you can hear a girdle squeak for three blocks.
We march past the assembled multitude, Duckworth never glancing to right or left, straight ahead, brow high, paper-thin black kid gloves worn on his baton hands. Up ahead the flags and banners of all kinds are fluttering in the icy-cold breeze.
LITHUANIAN-AMERICAN CLUB. HOORAY FOR AMERICA! GOD BLESS ALL OF US
The steelworkers just stand there silently, looking. From somewhere far behind a glockenspiel in the German-American Band tinkles briefly and stops, and all around the steady drumbeats roll. We were on the march.
Strung overhead from lamppost to lamppost across the main street were strings of red and green Christmas lights. Green plastic holly wreaths with imitation red berries hung from every other lamppost.
We are now right in the middle of town. This is the big moment. It’s like Times Square in Hohman, Indiana. The crossroads. A streetcar line ran right down the middle of the main street, and I am straddling a track, trying to keep up the 180-beat-per-minute cadence; blow our own special version of “Jingle Bells” on my frozen sousaphone. Bitter frozen, sliding along the tracks with the ice packed in hard. I have lost all feeling. My ears, my nose, my horn are frozen; my hands are frozen.
We moved haltingly ahead. Slowly, slowly. We’d bump into the Italian ladies ahead, and the German plumbers behind would bump into us. Somewhere the Moose would swear, and the Eagles would yell. And then we were right at Ground Zero, the reviewing stand to our right, the assembled multitude cheering the National Champions on to further heights.
Wilbur spun and faced us with his old familiar stare, and suddenly the cold was forgotten. We were On! Two sharp rips of the whistle, a sustained, long, rising note, baton at port; two quick flips of the wrist, and our great fanfare boomed out. The parade had come alive. The Champs were on the scene. The American Legion Junior Fife and Drum Corps faded into oblivion. The Firemen’s Scottish Bagpipe Company disappeared into limbo. Wilbur Duckworth was in command.
Ray Janowski’s beat was never sharper, leading his drum section to heights that rivaled our best performances. Duckworth about-faced and went into action. His great shako reaching up like a giant shaving brush with plume into the sullen gray sky. A magnificent figure, his gold