Today is July 24th. To those living in Utah it is a State Holiday. It celebrates the day the Morman Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. It is a big deal in Utah. Salt Lake City always puts on a big parade but growing up in Cedar City 250 miles away we had to make our own fun.
Cedar always had a childrens parade on the 4th of July and on the 24th they would put on a big parade meaning more than kids riding bikes with crape paper streames. It meant flatbed trucks, hay wagons or anything big enough to be decorated in pioneer themes. The different Wards in town would decorate a float to an assigned theme. It was always fun and the town park would have games and food stands set up and a highlight and goal for me would be to get some Cotton Candy and a Pronto Pup. These things were rare and a great treat. You probably all know what Cotton Candy is but you probably have never heard of a Pronto Pup. These were in my young opinion the best thing that was ever invented. They were sold out the side of a trailer and only were available on the 4th and 24th of July. I later found out as I grew up and my experience expanded that the Pronto Pup was only another name for a corn dog. But at this point in time they were the best part of summer.
The childrens parade on the 4th of July was always fun because the company Dad worked for would sponser our street to put together a children’s float. My Aunt Wanda was probably the creative director and Uncle Reid and the other men of the neighborhood were the builders. All the children on the street were involved either pulling or pushing or riding or walking along behind in whatever costume we were put in.
Another reason to celabrate the 24th; it was my brother Doug’s birthday. So we would always have a party of some kind.
Other parades of note in Cedar would be the High School and Collage Homecoming. When I was a Senior in High School I had tried out and been accepted into the Pep Club. That year I was put in charge of the Pep Club Homecoming float. I had some helpers and everything went along pretty well and I had asked one of the local car dealers if they would let us use one of their cars to pull the float. When I went to the car dealer to get the car they told me they knew nothing about it and they couldn’t let me have a car. I was devistated. I went back to the float and we hooked up my Dad’s Chevy. It was dirty and we didn’t have time to get it washed so there we were going down the middle of town pulling my beautiful float with my Dad’s dirty car. Then the floats were all dropped off at the Collage football field for the homecoming game and after the car had been unhitched I was trying to get out of the field and I ran the front of the car into the corner of one of the floats. The end of a frustrating day.
When I was in College I was a member of the Drama Club and we made a couple of floats for the Homecoming parade. Making floats is hard work and I have a lot of respect for the people who spend so much time making floats for all the different celebrations.
After I started school when Halloween came around all the kids and teachers would dress up and we would have a costume parade down town. The store clerks and shoppers would come out and clap and cheer for us it was very thrilling. The grade school I went to was only about four blocks from the down town area. Looking back on that now I realize the teachers were very brave to take the whole school on a walk for blocks. I don’t remember doing that as I got in the upper grades only when I was fairly young.
Barbara