I…sort of love a parade?

So writing about Springtime Tallahassee the other day got me thinking about when I used to live on the parade route (as I mentioned). I was down by the Governor’s pad (occupied by Jeb in those days) as well as a bunch of other interesting stuff.

This is really the very very beginning of the parade route. It actually acts sort of as the staging area, because there are several streets that all converge there, which I suppose makes it easier to line-up all the floats and marching bands and Shriners in tiny cars and what not. As you can see on the map, they can line the paradees down Monroe and Thomasville and 1st Ave. and then merge them all together as the parade starts.

[An aside: to get the map I typed in my old address, which is were the green arrow claims to be pointing. That's actually The Grove (yeah, I wish I lived there). I was next door...move the arrow half an inch to the right and you've got it.]

At any rate, as you might imagine, staging begins much earlier than the parade proper… as you have to line everyone up and give people time to stick all the stuff back their floats that fell off while they were driving it over to the parade, and generally wrangle the unruly in to some semblance of a line. So for me, on a parade Saturday there was not really any sleeping in. In various years I was awakened at an earlier than ideal hour by a variety of things:

• police cars politely hitting their sirens to encourage motorists to move along as they set up barricades to block the streets (barricades that also effectively trapped me at home for the day, I might add)
• marching band members warming up and tuning their instruments in the front yard
• local radio zany-morning-crew-type guys testing out the sound system on their float by blasting “Funkytown” over and over
  
• High school ROTC calling cadence and marching up and down in front of the house
• Confederate soldiers on horseback hanging out across the street. Witness the view out the window on these pics I dug up:

(as always, click to enlarge)

But, all things considered, I didn’t mind the parade so much. It was only one day a year. (Actually, 2 days…the Winter Fest parade also caused all the streets to be blocked off. But since it was at night, it usually caused me to be trapped out of the house rather than in…) It was nice to not have to drive or park, just walk out the front door and have a seat on the grass. Also, parades are much more enjoyable when you have easy access to all the comforts of home like beer and snacks and your own bathroom…

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it’s that time of year again…

Oh, lord…it’s pledge drive time. I do realize that NPR stations are listener supported and that I am the public in public radio and all of that…but I’m still annoyed by the pledge drive. Mostly because they keep interrupting the programming. I like my news and information to flow…

At any rate, I did the right thing and made my donation. I do listen to Morning Edition every weekday (pretty much all morning, actually…clock radio, radio in the shower, car radio on the way to work) so I should do my part and kick them a few bucks.

While I was in the giving spirit today, I also bought a Florida State Parks Annual Pass (mostly to compensate for my usage of the Lake Overstreet Trails) and a Tallahassee Museum Membership (although it will always be the Junior Museum in my heart). Tallahassee fun galore!

It’s springtime, Tallahassee…

Also, it’s Springtime Tallahassee. I did not attend the festivities this weekend. Mostly due to the fact that I spent several years living at the start of the parade route, where staging would begin bright and early on a Saturday morning. But, that’s a story for another time…

I will discuss the fact that Tally is lovely this time of year. I remember a slogan from when I was a kid–I don’t recall if it was specifically for Springtime Tallahassee or if it was just some general Chamber of Commerce-y thing–”Tallahassee, where springtime comes first”. To that I say, “word”. It’s still cold in lots of the U.S., but not here. Balmy and blooming like mad. Check out the flowery-ness just in my yard alone (and these are just random camera phone pics taken on the spur of the moment):

And those are just the azaleas. We also got dogwoods, wisteria, camellias, it’s a madhouse of blooming things. And pollen galore…not a happy time for the allergy prone. But everything looks so pretty…

7 unrelated things

1. I went to the FSU/Wake Forrest basketball game last night. During the time outs, they always have little games and activities and whatnot to entertain the fans…like no one can just fend for themselves for the 30 seconds or 3 minutes or whatever. A feature of one of the time outs is the “kiss cam” where they point a camera at random couples in the stands and they appear on the big jumbotron scoreboard screen. When you see yourselves up there, you are then supposed to kiss. I hate the kiss cam. Aside from it just being lame and weird, it’s also creepy. They just point it at people they think are couples, but they don’t really know. I mean, what if the 2 people they select are siblings? Or father and daughter? Or 2 people having an affair? Or some person who just happened to be sitting next to you at a basketball game? Kiss cam sucks. (Although, this is kind of entertaining…)

2. What is up with the weather today? When I got up it was in the 30’s, yet the high is supposed to be 75 today. North Florida weather is so screwy. As usual, layers are the answer.

3. Where is a cop when you need one? Several cars blew past me this morning going at least 50 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. Of course, 2 seconds later we were all stopped at the same traffic light, so it’s not like their reckless speeding (in a residential area, by the way) got them where they were going any faster.

4. When did they stop making sweaters with full length sleeves? I need a plain black v-neck sweater, which seems like it should be an easy enough item to find. But, every single sweater I find…3/4 length sleeves. Is this just a Florida thing or what? I stand by my philosophy “cold enough for a sweater, cold enough for sleeves”.

5. Did you hear what Jane Fonda said on the Today show? Whatever…it’s the name of the monologue people. It’s just a word…(also, check this out. In FL, of course…)

6. This whole superdelegate thing seems a bit shady…very “smoke filled room”.

7. Hey, it’s a leap year! Extra February for everyone!

just back from exercising my franchise

Happy Florida Presidential Primary Day everyone. Even though our votes supposedly won’t count, I did my civic duty anyway. I love going to the polling place. And remember ladies, we were Sufferin’ Till Suffrage…

he used several of the 7 dirty words…

Saw George Carlin last night at Ruby Diamond. He’s as funny as ever. A lot of the material he did will probably appear here. He had some good political stuff and religious stuff. It was an interesting mix of students and old hippies and people like my parents (who I got tickets for the show for Christmas). A good time was had by all.

Also, a random link to the 7 dirty words…it’s always fun.

Howdy, former sort-of neighbor

In preparation for celebrating America’s birthday, I made a trip to one of my favorite institutions—the Public Library. I needed a suitably vacation-y book to read by the ocean, so off to the library I went. Ours is a good one, with lots of space and places to sit, plenty of terminals to access the card catalog (I still miss those little drawers full of actual cards though), and a great selection of books, books on tape/CD, CDs, DVDs, magazines, newspapers, and more.

But instead of talking about all that good stuff that is inside the library, let’s talk about what’s on the outside. Specifically, the name on the outside.The LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library. On this day after Scooter Libby goes scooting right past jail on a presidential commutation, I thought it might be nice to take a look a statesman. While I wasn’t alive during his time as Governor, Collins seems by all accounts to have provided steady and compassionate leadership during a turbulent time and to have had a true dedication to public service. Check out his accomplishments.This site also enabled me to discover a list of the 50 Most Important Floridians of the 20^th Century. Check out the bios on some of those folks, Florida has some impressive peeps. Plus a “top however many of whatever” list is always fun.

Also, I used to live right next door to The Grove, the Collins’ family home. On the other side of their house is the Florida Governor’s Mansion. A seemingly lovely ‘hood. I’m sure when the Collins’ first moved in, it was a picturesque residential neighborhood. But it is right downtown so the city has kind sprung up around them. This doesn’t really affect the Governor’s pad as it is surrounded by a pretty but substantial fence. And The Grove occupies several acres (the sprawling grounds actually cover a couple of blocks. The house is bounded by First Avenue on one side and Third Avenue on the other. Needless to say, Second Avenue dead ends into their property line.) The rest of the neighborhood is a bit eclectic. Also located within a one mile radius of these locations: the Florida state capitol building, a tattoo parlor, the Florida Supreme Court, the Greyhound bus station, the northeastern edge of Florida State University, a halfway house, several auto body shops, an historic cemetery where Prince and Princess Murat are buried (he was Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, she was George Washington’s great-grandniece), an extremely seedy motel (which is actually called the Prince Murat Motel), and come to think of it…the LeRoy Collins Public Library.

This is the bronze statue in the small park across the street from The Grove and Governor’s Mansion. Florida’s Finest by W. Stanley “Sandy” Proctor, commissioned by former First Lady Rhea Chiles.