| Though trained as a journalist, I‘ve always been an amateur psychologist / sociologist / anthropologist at heart. One of my favorite ways to start a sentence is, “From a sociological perspective …” So it was with a keen curiosity that, after logging in a morning stairstepper yesterday morning, showering, donning my purple oversized Detroit News polo and settling onto the couch with a bowl of cereal, I had to wonder … Just what is it with this whole parade thing?
Flag-waving marching bands, a 600-pound Shrek, some “hot” new recording artist you haven’t heard of … it’s intriguing, and quite fun. I suppose it’s mucho fab to be a member of one of those marching bands enjoying a moment of national TV fame. And for that recording artist, doing a parade like this is “up” – as opposed to J.Lo, for whom it’d be “down.” (It reminds me of my own book-signing appearances at a particular comic con the past couple years – I’ve been joking to my friends that it may be down for Jonathan Frakes or Lou Ferrigno, but hey, it’s up for me!)
Twirling batons, floats, lip-synching … On Thanksgiving Day, that’s entertainment. Maybe it doesn’t matter why, other than for the fact that it’s tradition. The parents who take their kids down to the parade route were once taken there as kids themselves. Tradition for tradition’s sake. It’s why I turned that channel on. The feeling of being a kid again, getting ready to go to Grandma’s house in mid-Michigan. The sights and sounds of the season. The comfort of familiarity. For us creatures of habit, that’s certainly reason enough.
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