Parades in Recent Memory
October 29, 2011
ALAN writes:
I agree with your remarks about parades.
In 1956, my mother took 24 color slides at two parades in downtown St. Louis: an Easter Seals Parade and the Armed Forces Day Parade. They show groups of soldiers in military uniform and helmet, a bugle corps in black and white uniform, groups of children wearing school colors and carrying batons, and a women’s bugle corps group neatly attired in white blouse, gold tie and skirt, green jacket, green and white hat, and white shoes.
In 1957, she took four color slides during the annual Veiled Prophet Parade, which featured marching bands and beautifully-decorated and lighted floats carrying the Veiled Prophet Queen and her Special Maids of Honor equally beautifully attired.
You would look in vain for any similar parades in St. Louis today. But every June you can watch a parade to celebrate queerdom as it makes its way through a city park.
If my grandparents could return to witness the absence of the former and the celebration of the latter, they would conclude that this is not the same nation they remember. And they would be right.
