Join The Parade

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

John Barth
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It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. This is the day families get together and enjoy or don't enjoy each other's company. It's a feasting day, the celebration of the harvest. It's also the day of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. If you aren't there you may be watching it right now on television instead of reading my purple prose.

Freddy Fender was born Baldemar Garza Huerta in 1937. He was a Mexican American, born in Texas. In his younger years he played guitar and sand songs in both English and Spanish. He specialized in folk, rock and Trejano, which is a mixture of Louisiana folk music and Mexican Mariachi. He played and sang in bars and honky tonks all around the South. He took there name Fender from his guitar, and thought the name Freddy went well with it.

The Thanksgiving parade begins way up on the upper West Side of Manhattan and moves down Broadway to lower Manhattan. Marching bands from all around the country come to be in the parade. There are big balloons and floats.

For part of his career Freddy was in a group known as the "Texas Tornano." He once described the group by saying "You've heard of the New Kids on the Block? well we're the Old Guys on the Street."

The parade is known for its huge balloons of comic book characters. It's a great delight to children and adults to see Mickey Mouse as tall as a building drifting down Broadway with a big smile and an arm that waves. But those balloons often get tangled up in the wires and tree limbs. When that happens the parade comes to a halt for 10 minutes or so until the handlers get the balloon loose.

Fender was a charismatic entertainer and as a soloist he sang and recorded some songs that won him Emmys. One of them was "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." But his most famous song was "Before The Next Tear Drop Falls." It was the big country hit of the year.

One year I saw the parade from the west side of Times Square. It was a cold and rainy day. There was no one else on the block where I was because there was no shelter except one small awning I was standing under. There was a group of people way off on the other side of Times Square under the marquees of the movie theatres, out of the rain.

The theme of the parade that day was country music. There were the usual balloons and marching bands, and then there was a big float with the sound of a woman's voice singing a country tune. It was Dolly Parton herself, under a canopy of flowers, safe from the rain and surrounded by beautiful girls all with hoop skirts and bouquets. The float went along, made the transition across 7th Avenue and disappeared down Broadway.

Freddy eventually achieved a lot of success, made some films and some TV appearances, was featured on Austin City Limits, won many awards and set up some scholarship funds for other Mexican American kids.

After Dolly Parton and her girls passed there was another big balloon and more marching bands. Then I looked up Bradway and saw a large wooden horse on one of the floats. As it came into view I could see sitting on the horse, way above the street level, was Freddy Fender. And, of course, just as it got to me the parade stopped.

He was dressed for the part including a cowboy hat and boots. But it was raining. Behind him was a marching band, stomping in puddles as they marched in place and played their band music. Freddy looked around and saw me. He waved. I waved back. There was no one else around. He waved at the people on the other side of the square but they were too far away to make eye contact. So he waved at me again. And I waved back. He took his hat and waved that. I was holding my rain coat close around my neck because of the cold, but I let go to wave.

This occasional waving back and forth went on for about 10 minutes before the parade moved again and he went on his way. He was perched up on the big horse from which he couldn't dismount, exposed to the rain and cold and I was huddled in a doorway. There he was stuck in the middle of Times Square in the rain and probably wondering what the hell he was doing there. I could have moved in out of the rain, but even though I wasn't particularly a fan of his, I was his only fan in that place at that time.

He was going to sit there proudly and heroically until the last raindrop fell and I was not going to leave him.

Before he died he wanted to be the first Mexican American inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I don't think it happened.

DB - The Vagabond
May everybody have a festive day wherever you are
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

8 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Another Day

Leave something good in every day.

Dolly Parton
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Let me tell you this retirement bit is no stroll in the park. I don't have enough time in the day to do all the things I need and want to do. I try to read the huge mountain of books that interest me. I try to paint pictures that will please and intrigue people. I try to share ideas, adventures, stories and humor with the few folks who read my journal (only 7 today), and while doing all of that I try to take care of myself as best I can.

It has been nasty hot here for several days. They keep saying "rain" but they lie. To spend a day outside makes for a very smelly shirt. Now I don't care if I wear one around here, I'm the only one here to smell me. But it might just be that I will have to go out into the general public one of these days and since I didn't have a clean shirt to wear I hauled them all down to the laundry machine and washed them. When the machine was done doing its mysterious cycles, I hauled them all back upstairs and hung them up. I'll be damned if I'll pay an extra dollar just to dry them. I hang them up and let nature take its course.

Once that was done I was exhausted and needed a nice frosty mug of apple juice on the rocks. It's a good thing I bought some the other day. While I was enjoying that I began to think about the other things the should have gotten done but weren't going to. And I thought about quitting. I said to myself "Self. Why don't you just stop? You don't have to read. You don't have to write. You don't have to paint. You don't have to think. Just relax, watch some stupid TV and forget about it all." Myself answered "And just how long do you imagine you will be able to do that without getting bored." "Okay Self" I said, "you're right. It's back to the computer."

I would like very much to be able to do more than I do. There is always something important that I didn't get to, something left over for the next day, or the day after. But it's a good reason to stagger out of bed in the morning, find my slippers, take a pee, make a coffee and think about all the things I have to do.

I hope I leave something good in every day.

DB - The Vagabond
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

15 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
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Creative Construction

If you don't like the road you're walking on, start paving a new one.

Dolly Parton
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I have an easier time following other people's advice than following my own. That's probably because my own gems of worldly wisdom emerge out of my own molasses mentality. One cannot live without facing confusion, bewilderment and doubt. Sometimes, some people manage to tie those together in a bundle, toss it into a back pack and get on with life.

The implication I read in this quote from Dolly Parton is a challenge to me and to others. It is easier to take a different road if life is not going where you want it to than to actually prepare your own way. And yet we have the right and opportunity to make the road go where we want it to go, to decide on a destination and make a way to get there.

William Jennings Bryan wrote "Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." I think too many people go through life just accepting what comes along and calling it luck, the will of God, circumstances over which they have no control, destiny. And I have certainly been guilty of that lackadaisical hallucination in my past.

I sometimes think of myself as suddenly plunked down in the middle of a jungle with nothing but an axe. I cut down trees, split logs and stank them up to make a dwelling to protect myself from the elements and the wild beasts. And once my creature comforts are taken care of I start to cut a trail through the jungle to get - where? Ah that's the problem. Where am I going?. Am I going to spend the rest of my life in the jungle, like Tarzan? Or am I going to get out somehow? And is the only goal I have to get out? Or is there a reason for getting out? And if so, what is it? That's when I start thinking about destiny. And that brings me ultimately back to the big and most important fundamental question: Who am I?

Am I what I look like? No. Am I what I eat? No. Am I what I do for a living? Not necessarily. The human being is a very complex creature and it probably takes a score of lifetimes to figure him out. I'm glad I'm not in the jungle. I do know a lot about myself that I didn't know before. The way to go becomes clearer every day. My destination is my destiny. And as long as I am not completely self-satisfied (heaven forbid) I have the right and freedom to make a better man of myself, in as many ways as I can.

I'm paving.

DB - The Vagabond
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OTHER VOICES

Next weekend there will be a special Vagabond Journey about the Art of Acting and the Actor's Life with special contributions from as many of my actor friends as I can inspire to write their thoughts and feelings, their experience and wisdom.

That's next weekend. Don't miss it. Tell your friends. Post a notice in all the crooks and nannies around town.

DB