Oh did I love May Day as a kid! It was a week long celebration that always involved attending the fair, numerous times and both parades!
Back in the 60's the parades were so much fun. Lots of horses, lots and lots and lots of horses! That's all I wanted to see, but the floats and the marching bands were a lot of fun too. The Big Parade, as we called it, was always on the Sunday that culminated the May Day celebrations. We'd walk into town and grab a good spot on the parade route to watch. Things were pretty simple back then. No one brought lawn furniture or ice chests. Easy peasy, when it was time to leave, nothing brought, so nothing to clean up. Seems that some of the floats did have people on them that tossed candy at the parade viewers, things such as those cool gold foil wrapped chocolate coins. I could never get enough of those!
I was forced to take ballet and tap dancing lessons as a kid so a few times I was in the Saturday morning Kiddie Parade. The entire group of kids who took those lessons would march behind a banner announce that we were students of Rose House Dance and Music Studio. But the most fun I had in the kiddie parade was with my friend Judy. We both went as Mr. Ed, you know, the talking horse, anyone remember? My mother made the costume for us out of an old sheet died to resemble a Palomino gelding and she made the head out of a paper bag and yarn. Judy and myself practiced for weeks before the parade and guess what? We won a prize! I cannot remember if it was 2nd place or 3rd place but I do remember what it was, $5, which we split. That was a ton of dough for a couple of nine year olds!
After the parade, the fair was the best thing in town for another year! All those rides! All that junk food! All the games! It was cheap entertainment and thought to be fairly safe as I recall going to the fair with my friends at a pretty young age, unsupervised by adults. I remember being told the usual, don't talk to strangers and the biggie, don't let them gyp you and lose all your money. Not that losing a dollar would have been a big disaster, but still, I recall counting the change after every transaction.
As I got a little older, I tended to enjoy other aspects of the fair. They had the 4-H displays, the paintings, the floral exhibits. Those were all pretty nice too. The last time I participated in May Day activities was probably 30 years ago. It wasn't the same. Didn't attend the Kiddie Parade that time but did attend the Big Parade and it was a let down. There were horses, but not the volume of before and instead of floats, oh there were a few, again, not the volume, they were replaced with people driving their personal cars through the parade route. Not all that exciting if you ask me. I haven't been back since that one last time but knowing that this is May Day week brought back those memories.
