Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Skagit Valley Berry-Dairy & Loggerodeo Kiddie Parades From Long Ago

That is my sister holding Yogi Bear over head. My sister is in Sedro-Woolley. At the end of the Sedro-Woolley Loggerodeo Kiddie's Parade.

When we were little kids my mom and dad had themselves a real good time building floats for us kids to parade on.

I remember one year my brother and I were Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble with my sister being Wilma. My dad made a very well done Flintstone mobile which my brother and I pulled while my sister rode.

Weeks before being Yogi Bear in the Sedro-Woolley parade we were on the same float in the Burlington Berry-Dairy Day's Kiddie Parade.

Actually, if I'm remembering correctly, I think at that point in time the kid floats were part of the main parade, not a separate Kiddie's Parade, in Burlington.

Several of our neighbors also made floats for their kids. We all kept our floats secret until the unveiling on parade day.

There were prizes given to the floaters. Us kids took it for granted that we would win. And we did.

The first Berry Dairy parade I was in it was not on a float. Mom and dad decorated my bike. I have a picture of me and that bike and a couple other floats.

The last float that I remember was a HUGE Strawberry. My youngest sister, at the time, til another sister came along several years later, was dressed like a princess, sitting on top of the HUGE Strawberry. I can find no photo of this float.

None of us kids, except for my little sister, were on the HUGE Strawberry float. My dad was inside the HUGE Strawberry, pushing it, creating puzzlement among the parade watchers as to what was motoring that HUGE Strawberry.

If I remember right it was the HUGE Strawberry float  that was the float that had trouble getting over the railroad tracks that crossed the parade route.

The HUGE Strawberry float was to be the last float my mom and dad built. I suspect this was the last because  it was the most complicated to build, hardest to move. And there was that railroad track incident.

I wonder if there are pictures in existence of the Flintstone and HUGE Strawberry floats?

As the decades passed the Kiddie's Parades became much more mundane. I don't know if, in this century, Sedro-Woolley and Burlington still have Kiddie Parades.

2 comments:

CatsPaw said...

Hmm ... when the topic of a visit to Jellystone RV Park came up, you did not disclose any previous relationship with Yogi Bear. I'll just bet you snuck down there for a bedtime story all by yourself.

Sedro-Woolley Chamber of Commerce said...

Sedro-Woolley still has the Kiddie parade for Loggerodeo as well as the Grand Parade on the 4th of July.
Burlington still has the Berry Dairy Days as well.
:)