BLOG: Even When They Take Place in Sunny California, a Parade is Just a Parade.
My paper recently sent me to Pasadena, CA to cover one of our local high school bands marching in the Rose Parade.
The act of a small community newspapers sending a photographer and a writer out of state for coverage is almost completely unheard of these days as newspapers cut their staffs and put an end to the “frivoulous coverage” of things outside of their immediate area. Needless to say I was surprised to get the opportunity as was one of my old (as in previous not in age) photo editors Rodney Curtis who exclaimed via Facebook, “Wow, papers still send photogs on trips to cover local folks in distant locales? That’s the best news I heard all day.”
So it was off to California I went, to see the true Pacific Ocean for the first time and to see the “granddaddy of all parades.”
Here’s the thing, I hate parades.
Oh that’s right I hate parades almost as much as I hate spiders. Okay that was just crazy talk, spiders are worse by far but you get my point.
Many will say but “how can you hate a parade- everyone loves a parade!?!?” Most photographers hate parades, trust me. I cover an average of 5 parades a year and groan every time one comes up.
It also doesn’t help that I grew up in Traverse City, Michigan where every summer I was exposed to not one but three parades every Cherry Festival. Sure it was fun when you were a kid and you got to be in the parade (in third grade I was a cherry in a cherry pie how original ) but you see I was also scarred for life while attending one of those Cherry Festival parades.
It was the dreaded Heritage Parade, the most boring of the three, and anyone from Traverse City will tell you that it always rains for the Heritage Parade. Well it didn’t just rain that year, it poured.
Attempting to find a place to hide from the monsoon, my Mother and a youngster me were running to the tent that housed the Budweiser Clydesdale Team because I wanted to see the horses…
What happened next was a family controversy for years.
Scratch that- still is a family controversy.
We were almost to the tent when looming ahead of me was this gigantic puddle. Next thing I knew I was face down in the puddle crying and my mother was laughing as she was “trying” to help me out of it. Details are a little fuzzy but to this day I swear my mother pushed me into that puddle and that puddle was so big I could have drowned.
(Mother stop yelling at the computer screen you know you pushed me!)
But I digress, here are a few shots that I liked from my whirlwind trip to California. You’ll notice that not one of them is of the true parade because frankly it was just like any other parade but with roses.
South Kitsap Marching Band members Tessa Pontow and Paul Dekorte try on sunglasses while at the Santa Monica Pier.
MEEGAN M. REID | KITSAP SUN
My first view of the Pacific Ocean. It looked just like the Atlantic Ocean but I was facing the opposite direction. 
South Kitsap Marching Band members Callie Jones and Curtis Buhrman take photos while visiting the Santa Monica Pier.
MEEGAN M. REID | KITSAP SUN
Pre-dawn palm trees.
A tired Jaron Pitts watches a rival marching band pass by while fellow band mates Daniel Spellman and Shelby Sterling give each other a congratulatory hug after the band finished marching in the five-mile-long Tournament of Roses Parade.
MEEGAN M. REID | KITSAP SUN
***All photos copyright Meegan M. Reid/ Kitsap Sun***