OB Parade Character Makes For A Memorial NYE
They used to hold an Orange Bowl parade in Miami.
Held on New Year’s Eve, the night before the big game, it was a South Florida tradition for 62 years. And I went to it once.
I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Miami and one year as kids, our parents took us to spend New Year’s with them. Aunt Jean thought mom, dad and in particular my sister and I would enjoy the parade so she got tickets in the grandstands.
And let me tell you, we enjoyed it all right but in a way Aunt Jean could not have ever imagined.
The parade went down Biscayne Blvd., and it was broadcast nationally. In fact, it was the only nighttime parade in the country shown on national TV. Some 500,000 people turned out for it and the floats were extravagant.
But it was not any of the floats that entertained my sister and myself. It was the drunk in the stands next to us.
I recall being about 10 years old at the time an my sister was entering her teenage years. It was our first experience around someone who had been drinking heavily and it was hilarious.
The guy was dressed in a suit, tho as he drank the jacket got started falling off his shoulders and his shirt became less and less firmly tucked into his pants. He was pudgy and alone and turned out to be the life of the party.
He was making jokes, commenting on the floats and while loud, was not the least obnoxious. He was funny. Everyone around us was laughing.
When a float came by that had Brazil Carnival-style girls on it – skimpy glittery costumes, big plumes on their heads – he really came to life. Every few steps, the girls would kneel down and disappear into some type of cylinder, leaving only their big plumes exposed to the crowd. They disappeared when the float got to our grandstand and the drunk yelled “UP, UP, UP!!!!”
The entire grandstand was laughing and my sister and I joined in the “UP, UP” chant. When the girls emerged, a huge cheer went out and the girls looked over at is as if to say “wow, we’re getting cheered!”
The man had a drink in his hand and kept leaving every few minutes to walk to a bar to bring back a refill. One time, he did not come back to the stands for a while and Aunt Jean figured he passed out somewhere, but NO! Tired of going back and forth so often to the bar because he was missing so much of the parade, he came back with the bar’s waitress!
She had a full tray of drinks with her and she stayed there until the end of the parade to hand him fresh cocktails.
That was my first New Year’s Eve memory – in fact, one of my first travel memories – and it’s an experience I still remember happy to this day. In fact, I cracked a few laughs while writing this blog post.
Happy New Year from PubClub.com!
RELATED POST:
• World’ Top 10 New Year’s Eve Destinations
Leave a Reply