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Manhattan's Labor Day Parade
manhattan, IL
september 4, 2006
INTRODUCTION
Manhattan? Manhattan, as in New York? No, that's not the Manhattan I
would be spending a good portion of my day today. It's a
small town
located near Kankakee, Illinois with approximately 4,500 citizens, and
as I approached it in my Subaru Forester I got that small "hometown"
feeling. It reminded me of the town my father was born and raised in,
Paris (IL), as they are both small farm towns in the lower portion of
Illinois. You couldn't have asked for better parade-marching weather, as
it was in the very low 70s with overcast skies. It had rained a little
bit earlier in the morning, but the rain wasn't falling by 1000 hours.
arrival & preparation for battle
The initial game plan was to meet up at a friend's house that was
right near to where the parade was going to start. It would be the prime
location to get suited up, since it would be so close to the start of
the parade. The first two members of the
Midwest
Garrison to show up were Fitz and myself. He would be a clean white
stormtrooper, and I would be the dirty sandtrooper. Other members that
showed up were Kevin (Boba Fett), Rich (Darth Vader), Jerry (Tusken
Raider), Aimee (Biker Scout) and Kevin's son (TIE pilot; sorry, I can't
remember your first name).
It was a good amount of troopers for only have two weeks to prepare
for this. I met up with the two local residents who had requested our
service, Tim and Kim, at one of our
previous events (Brookfield
Zoo's "Zoo Stars" parade). They had mentioned to me that they were going
to be marching in their town's Labor Day parade, and was hoping that we
could participate in it. I told her that I would be able to do it, but
wasn't so sure how many MWG members would be available for it.
Surprisingly we had a total of seven, which was way more than I thought
could do it. It only took all of us about 20-30 minutes to get ready,
and before we knew it we were all outside ready to start marching.
It seemed to be a long wait for the parade to start, but it wasn't
too bad since it was very comfortable weather and was nice to hang out
with other MWG members before it actually started.
big turnout for a small town
Since the town wasn't all that big, I was thinking to myself that it
was going to be a small turnout. I thought the parade would be over and
done with in about ten minutes, and I thought there weren't going to be
many people watching us. Boy, was I wrong.
 Just
as in other parades I've marched in when the cities were known to be
small in size, the city all came out to watch this special Labor Day
parade. Everywhere you looked people of all ages were waiting to see the
parade march past them. Most of the people were screaming, "Look,
there's Darth Vader!" Most of the people knew who we were, and it's
great to know that young and old are so familiar with the Star Wars
universe. They might not have known who all of us were, but each and
every one of them sure knew who Darth Vader was. There was no doubt
about that.
It was a fun time and if anyone in the town of Manhattan needs our
services again, I'd be more than willing to drive an hour to provide my
services.
Photo Gallery
To see the photo gallery containing 33 photos click
here. I have to give a
big thanks to Larry who marched the entire parade carrying my camera and
took these photos. Thanks! |
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