The Parade

I recently walked in a parade. I was a little nervous, but it was fun, and I didn’t trip.

Our daughter’s in a baton twirling class. The class is composed of 12 girls of varying ability and age, she’s the youngest at four years. The troop was scheduled to walk in a parade. We’d talked about it with her leading up to the event and she sounded excited. But at the pre-parade warm up she said she didn’t want to walk and was discouragingly adamant. Too bad, I was hoping she’d have a chance to show off her ‘tree chop’ maneuver that she’d been performing so well. We even offered to buy her a milk shake if she’d walk. [I admit it, I was hoping for another milk shake miracle.]

With only a few minutes before ‘go time’, and much hopeful cajoling, she was still maintaining that she didn’t want to walk. As a last resort I asked if she’d walk in the parade if I walked with her. She gave a big smile and said ‘Yes.’ I wonder if she was trying to call my bluff. (‘There’s no way daddy would actually walk in this thing’.) Her coach gave us the go-ahead and we took our position.

As the parade progressed up the street we held our position going hand in hand. She was doing her ‘pancaking’ with the baton, so it’s called this baton rotating while in hand. It was nice her bashful expression when I explained how all the crowd and applause were for her and her teammates.

I felt like a goof ball, the only dad walking with the twirlers. Plus, I hoped I was not too much of a distraction taking attention away from the other twirlers. They really did a super job.


(The Boogie in all her smiling glory.)

(Too bad I look like an angry man here.) [Photos removed by Klem on 7/26/2010.]


We ran the gauntlet and enjoyed the experience. This also qualified her for the earlier offer of the milk shake. She chose vanilla.
-klem