Parade

I was supposed to take Daisy over to Pastor Kurt's and ride with his entourage in the parade for the JoCo Fair.

A variety of reasons, some more legitimate than others, talked me out of it and in any case we slept too late to have made it. Daisy doesn't have anything you could properly call brakes, she's only got one gear, and between Mo's unreliable stoking and the tendency for Daisy to drop chains, it could have been a real adventure.

We settled for the sidelines and shooting pics.

When I thought I'd found a parking space, I'd gotten as far as installing the club when I realized this hillbilly was yelling at me from his porch. A belly-button-length nicotine stained beard was telling me to 'go back to Mexico' and quit blocking his 'fucking driveway.'

Go back to Mexico? I've been called lots of things, the Vanilla Gorilla for instance, but never have I been mistaken for Hispanic. I'm about as Latin as Johnny Winter.

The 'fucking driveway' I was blocking couldn't be used much as one or the car parking in it would have killed the grass in a way that a few handfuls of gravel aren't. That gravel might have been thick enough to pave a driveway at one time, but no more recently than Jimmy Carter's administration.

Apparently this guy's entertainment on parade day, instead of walking over a block and seeing the parade, is to sit on his porch, smoke cigarettes, and shout obscenities at people who try to park in front of his derelict yard.

I know, Jesus died for the hillbillies too. I still struggle with that one. And, it is America, so I guess the asshole was right when he said, "I can be this way if I want to!"

After I saw Pastor Kurt with his homemade recumbent bike towing two-stage bicycle float, I realized I was wrong to leave Daisy at home. It's a flat parade route, really, and the weather was ideal.

We ended up passing on the rest of the fair. Normally I take them and do a few rides or, more often, pop for the wristbands that let them ride as many rides as they want to wait in line for. But what those wristbands cost is halfway to a trip to Worlds of Fun, and no traveling carnival can beat that or even get halfway to it.