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st. patrick's day parade in naperville
Naperville, IL
March 11, 2006
We Had a Little Luck of the Irish!
Back in late November last year I marched in Naperville's Little
Friends Parade, and it was real crappy weather that day. It was rainy,
windy and very cold, but that wasn't going to stop us then. The forecast
for today was calling for high 50s low 60s, windy and thunderstorms, but
the rain never showed up for our parade. We were able to see some
lightning off in the distance, but it was far enough away from us, so that
it wouldn't put a damper on all the locals who were going to enjoy their
mornings with a parade. So, I guess you could say that since this was a
parade to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, that we were quite lucky to have
not gotten ourselves soaking wet.
I showed up in the Naperville North High School's parking lot around
9:00am, since that's when everyone was supposed to be there. Well, there
were only a few other people there, and they were almost all suited up in
their outfits. I was only about ten minutes into putting my armor
together, when I cut my finger really bad and started bleeding. It wasn't
pretty, and stupid me didn't have any band-aids to put on it. Luckily I
was able to use some Kleenex and black electrical tape to make mends. As
the Jesse "the Body" Ventura once said in the movie Predator, "I ain't got
time to bleed."
After getting all suited up finally, I was ready to start enjoying the
moment. It was the first time my buddy Jeff (aka Darth Berger) had seen me
in my sandtrooper armor, so I was pretty excited about him finally being
able to see me in it. He got the opportunity to see me really enjoy
myself, as I was helping direct traffic in the school's parking lot. Some
people were obviously enjoying themselves, while others must not have been
too interested in Star Wars. Too bad for them.
The time had come, and we started moving toward our section in the
parking lot where we would be placed for the parade. We had a spot
somewhere in the 50s, as there were something like 80 or so different
entries in the parade. That's a whole lot of people in a parade if you ask
me. There were tons of people waiting for this thing to get started, and I
was just as anxious as everyone else was. Lots of people kept coming up to
us asking to have their pictures taken with us, and of course I couldn't
get enough of that. I love having my picture taken with people, especially
with kids because it's just great seeing the smiles on their faces when
they see us. I did have the opportunity of having my picture taken with
the queen of the parade, but unfortunately I don't have a photo of that.
Hopefully I'll be able to get one in either the local newspaper or online
somewhere.
Just before the parade was getting ready to start, we all got together
to have a group picture taken of us. I'm not sure where this came from or
who it belongs to, but there was a very cool 501st/MWG banner that we were
going to carry in the parade that was obviously designed for the St.
Patrick's Day parade. We all tried squeezing in as close to one another so
that we could all get in the photo, while holding that banner, and the
picture was then taken. I couldn't wait to see that photo when I got home.
After hanging out in the parking lot for what seemed like an hour, it
was FINALLY time to start moving. I can tell you one thing that I was
getting tired of just standing around, and it was great to finally start
walking. We all formed up with the Jedi and Rebels in the front, followed
by stormtroopers, sandtroopers and Boba Fett, and then the TIE pilots and
none other than Darth Vader in the rear. I would have to guess there were
about 25 of us there, which was an incredible amount of people for the
parade.
One thing that was exciting for me, is that I knew my wife, son and our
best friends (Jeff and his wife & son) were going to be standing on the
sidewalk watching me march in the parade. It was the first time Jeff and
Julie had ever seen me in my armor before, and it was the first time
Carrie had seen me doing anything with the MWG. I couldn't wait to see the
look on their faces when I would get close to them.
 It
was quite a long walk for us, as it was supposedly just under two miles in
length from start to finish, and this would be the longest parade I've
been involved in (out of a total of three including this one). I have no
problems with walking as I walk all the time, but I was having some
difficulty marching in my armor today. My diamond knee plate kept tucking
underneath my thigh piece, so when I was walking it kept making this
popping sound and it just felt uncomfortable for me. I was also afraid
that the piece was going to snap off my leg, and if it did I probably
would never have even noticed until it would be too late to do anything
about it. It was also very windy and there were a couple moments I thought
Princess Leia was going to fly away. Now that would have been cool!
 I
was very impressed with the number of local residents that had made the
event, and there were tons of children screaming for Darth Vader. Rich (aka
dad vader) must have been loving every single second when he heard them
yelling his name. I did hear some kids yelling for Boba Fett, as he was
also a star celebrity in the parade (BTW that new gun of yours looked
awesome!). Lots of people kept asking the typical questions to me:
- "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"
- "Why are you so dirty?"
- "Look at the dirty stormtrooper!"
- "Who are you supposed to be?"
- "Are you a good guy?"
As we had made our way down through the city of Naperville, when we
were almost at our final destination spot (Centennial Beach), something
surprisingly happened to me. Something had hit my helmet not just one time
but several times, each time making a very loud "thump" sound, and there
were some kids who had thrown several pieces of hard candy at my helmet. I
turned around real quick and they had already taken off. I couldn't
believe that kids would think about throwing candy at someone in a costume
like that, let alone actually throwing that at someone. Totally
disrespectful if you ask me. Did that ruin my day though? Hell no! I had a
blast marching with everyone, and it couldn't have turned out to be a
nicer day than it was today.
 Once
we all met up at Centennial Beach, it was time to do a few more group shot
photos, and then the parade was over. I said my goodbyes to some of the
crew, found my wife and son, and started heading back to my car. On the
way there I must have been stopped by at least five different people
asking to have their picture taken with me. I couldn't get enough of that,
so of course I stopped so they could take my picture. There were even very
young kids following asking if they could touch my armor and guns.
It was a great day, and I'm so honored to belong to such an incredible
organization as the Midwest Garrison of the 501st. Until next time... all
hail Cobra! Ooops, I mean long live the Empire!
Photo Gallery
To see all the photos that were taken at this event, click on one of
the two galleries below.
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