Everyone Loves a Parade

When I was a kid, The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was a big deal. Everyone would watch it... and I mean everyone.

Not just kids waiting for the turkey to be done, parents and grandparents would join their kids to watch as the marching bands, floats, convertbles with celebrities, and character balloons passed by.

And speaking of character balloons, did you know that the first were Felix the Cat, the Dragon, the Elephant, and the Toy Solider who appeared in the first Macy's parade in 1927.

Here are a few other things that I'll bet you didn't know about the parade:

1] The first balloons used in the parade were filled with helium, and would have exploded had they reached too high an altitude!

2] The second year Macy's came up with a helium and air mixture that is still used to this day.

3] Starting the second year and for the next three years, the balloons were released into the air at the end of the parade. Cash prizes were offered to those who found and returned the balloons.

Clarence Chamberlain, a pilot flying above New York City, caught the Pig Balloon in midair in an effort to be first to collect the prize money; and the following year, an aviator almost crashed into Broadway in an attempt to be the first to get a balloon. Due to stunts like these the practice of releasing the balloons at the end of the parade was stopped in 1933.

So here we are over 70 years later and the parade is still on, but does anybody watch anymore? Seems like even parade organizers are having trouble getting celebrities to come to the darn things. I guess we live in a world that is just too fast paced. We don't have time for a good parade anymore.

And that's too bad, because when I was a kid...