Thanksgiving Part 3

No Thanksgiving is complete around here without the Holiday Parade on Saturday. We have a "standing" place to sit so that anyone in the family who comes know where to meet us. This year, the parade committee decided to have the parade at 5pm. instead of it's usual time of 2 in the afternoon. The reasoning was so they could use Christmas lights and give the parade a new "dimension."

We usually sit at the beginning of the parade route. They start in the High School Parking lot, come up a small hill by the Great Scot grocery store and make a turn in front of Webster School. We always sit in front of the elementary school by the Stop Sign. At 5, it wasn't too dark so the lights didn't make much of an impression on any of us. I had to wonder about the people viewing the parade at the end of the route. If it was dark enough to see the lights on the floats, could they see anything else? Our small town has some street lights, but I'm not sure it was enough to light up the elegant costumes or cute, smiling children on the floats. I suppose one must give up something for "progress" even in a parade. You could see the lights or the floats.

This year one of my nieces came along with her three boys. Austin, Cody and Brayden had never been to a parade. They were thrilled with the band (singular---it's a small town, what can I say?) They also loved the fact that everyone tossed out candy to the children along the curbs. Free candy and all you had to do was look small and smile.

About halfway through the parade, my great-nephew, Austin, turned to me and asked, "Is this all you do at a parade?" I'm not sure what he expected.

Austin is in the middle of the picture between his brother, Cody in the red and Miah in black. As you can tell, it was a cold day!

On the same day as the parade, I got another part time job. My cousin called to tell me that one of the cleaners at the boy's school had quit. Did I want Wed. and Fridays? I'd often thought it might be the perfect job. We were already there. It didn't take up any of my writing time. Plus, I'd have helpers.

I get paid and the boys get money taken off their tuition. It works out well--almost like "multi-tasking" character building. I told them they get to help their parents, work for the privledge of going to school there, make the school a clean place for all their friends and teachers and they are doing a community service too.

This was our first week as school cleaners. It went surprisingly well. The first day was rough. We had to wait for a knitting class to finish before I could mop or vacumn and we didn't get out until dark. When you are working in an old barn next to a 500 acre nature preserve in the middle of nowhere--well, every horror story you've ever seen comes back to haunt you as you struggle to lock the door on the way out. Our goal for this week is to get out before dark. Now that we are getting into the routine, it will go better.

So, that's the end of the Thanksgiving posts. I had to add the new job because I'm giving thanks for having it. Especially since I lost my church cleaning job a few months ago.