It was past four on a Saturday afternoon and there I was watching the annual Front Royal Christmas Parade along with my daughter, her husband, and a squad of children. In this parade were the usual small-town floats drawn by trucks or tractors, marching bands, dancers, animals, and a few scenes of the Nativity. On one float two engines normally used to power hot air balloons jetted impressive ten to fifteen foot flames, somehow avoiding setting afire trees whose limbs hung over the street. Decked out in scarves, stocking caps, and heavy coats against the cold, spectators jammed the sidewalks, riding herd on small children, talking and laughing with family and friends, and if they belonged to the younger set, scrambling after candy tossed to the street by some walking in the parade.
For me and for some of the adults and older children sharing the sidewalk around me, the highlight of the event was not the arrival of Santa Claus at the parade’s end, mounted high on one of the town’s fire trucks. No—it was a man walking a large dog along with some others behind a sign for an animal shelter that read “All Dogs Matter.” The leashed dog was cavorting playfully around its handler, a tall, country-looking fellow with a big grin. Suddenly the dog ran behind him, pulled hard on the leash, and broke away. “Oh, shit!” the man yelled and took off chasing the escapee.
He caught up with the dog less than half a block down the street, leaving the rest of us, including the older children, roaring with laughter.
In addition to that amusement, the parade gave rise to some thoughts about our country.
There we were, adults and children, suffering the cold weather to watch a bedraggled band of our fellow citizens process down a street while a couple of middle school and high school bands squeakily played their instruments. The drum major of one of the high school marching bands was a young black woman. The Randolph Macon Academy crew included white, black, and Chinese students. Participants ranged in age from toddlers to elderly residents of nursing homes, the latter protected from the frigid temperature by riding in a bus. Local beauty queens, veterans, ambulance and emergency vehicle drivers, gymnasts: hundreds of people were marching in that parade to celebrate Christmas while several thousand onlookers celebrated the season with them.
And in a way, all were celebrating America as well.
We Americans have just endured a long year divided by politics and by mud-slinging. To my ways of thinking, that parade offers a small ray of hope for a better future, that wonderful, rinky-dink procession where people were having fun celebrating the holiday season without thought of profit or gain. People knew one another at this event. They called to one another by name and on several occasions even left the parade to greet an old friend. Whether they realized it or not, the people around me regarded one another as human souls, not members of a political party or adherents to some radical philosophy. To this observer, that insignificant Christmas parade was a sign that we Americans can find common ground, that we can discover ways of working out our differences with diffidence and respect.
God bless us, every one.
He caught up with the dog less than half a block down the street, leaving the rest of us, including the older children, roaring with laughter.
In addition to that amusement, the parade gave rise to some thoughts about our country.
There we were, adults and children, suffering the cold weather to watch a bedraggled band of our fellow citizens process down a street while a couple of middle school and high school bands squeakily played their instruments. The drum major of one of the high school marching bands was a young black woman. The Randolph Macon Academy crew included white, black, and Chinese students. Participants ranged in age from toddlers to elderly residents of nursing homes, the latter protected from the frigid temperature by riding in a bus. Local beauty queens, veterans, ambulance and emergency vehicle drivers, gymnasts: hundreds of people were marching in that parade to celebrate Christmas while several thousand onlookers celebrated the season with them.
And in a way, all were celebrating America as well.
We Americans have just endured a long year divided by politics and by mud-slinging. To my ways of thinking, that parade offers a small ray of hope for a better future, that wonderful, rinky-dink procession where people were having fun celebrating the holiday season without thought of profit or gain. People knew one another at this event. They called to one another by name and on several occasions even left the parade to greet an old friend. Whether they realized it or not, the people around me regarded one another as human souls, not members of a political party or adherents to some radical philosophy. To this observer, that insignificant Christmas parade was a sign that we Americans can find common ground, that we can discover ways of working out our differences with diffidence and respect.
God bless us, every one.
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