{"id":2794,"date":"2008-05-28T02:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T06:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/05\/stepping-off\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:58","slug":"stepping-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/05\/stepping-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2008<\/a><\/p>\n

Our town does its parading on Memorial Day<\/a> – actually the Sunday before Memorial Day. The Fourth of July<\/a> is generally celebrated with family picnics or parades in other towns. Some 30 years ago, America’s automakers did a disservice to the nation by discontinuing the production of convertibles, ever useful for parading lovelies and luminaries. For years the only convertible in our parades was a well-used 1967 Plymouth<\/a>. Happily all that has changed. It’s the 21st Century and convertibles are back.<\/p>\n

Our memorial observances this year began with singing<\/a> of the Star Spangled Banner, followed by raising the flag<\/a> – then lowering it to half mast. The Silver Cornet Band<\/a> played “God Bless America” and then the parade stepped off<\/a>. The High School Band<\/a> furnished mellow marching tunes, and Grand Marshal Chelsea Bateman<\/a>, a winning essayist, was chauffeured in a red ’58 Chevy Impala. There were no fewer than three fife<\/a> and drum<\/a> corps<\/a>, one from as far away as Moodus<\/a>. Boy Scouts from Troop 12<\/a>, of which my son Edward is an Eagle alumnus, represented our side of town and our two fire<\/a> departments<\/a> had their best<\/a> equipment<\/a> in line. New this year was an emergency unit from the Salvation Army<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Convertibles there were aplenty, most carrying bevies of beauties<\/a>. Interestingly, most were imports: Saab<\/a> and BMW<\/a>, but Mustang<\/a> and Chrysler<\/a> showed the flag for our home country. Jeep can be considered a convertible, and we had two, counting the sailors<\/a> and Barbie<\/a>. We always have a few antique cars, this year represented by a Model A Ford<\/a> and a ’55 Ford Victoria<\/a>. For some reason, the lone ’62 Chevy<\/a> had its top up and no dignitaries aboard. A sweet ’41 Ford coupe<\/a> showed just a hint of rodding, a trait more prominent in the ’38 Chevy<\/a> behind it.<\/p>\n

Memorial Day, of course, remembers our soldiers, and we had a pair of HMMWVs<\/a> representing active duty and a convoy<\/a> of historic military vehicles, from World War II WC Dodge<\/a> to Korean era M37<\/a> to Deuce and a Half<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A parade is not a parade without floats. Sometimes they’re less than inspired, but this year in addition to the traditional patriotic themes<\/a> we had an innovative flying machine<\/a> and a float<\/a> that really floats<\/a>, complete with rowing hands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But not all was mechanized. Bringing up the rear was a mounted division<\/a>, with their own motorized detachment<\/a> for emission control<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our town does its parading on Memorial Day – actually the Sunday before Memorial Day. The Fourth of July is generally celebrated with family picnics or parades in other towns. Some 30 years ago, America’s automakers did a disservice to the nation by discontinuing the production of convertibles, ever useful for parading lovelies and luminaries.….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3280,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions\/3280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}