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Saturday, November 26, 2016

Three Days After... Photographs & Musings: Macy's 2016 Thanksgiving Parade Part Two-B





Welcome to the conclusion of my coverage re my experiences with the 2016 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. If you follow this blog, then you know that every day from November 15th 2016 through the eve of Thanksgiving (November 23rd 2016), I provided posts with cool information regarding the participants (mostly the character balloons and novelty balloons). And on Thanksgiving Day, as well as the day after, my blog entries were centered on what took place during this year's parade. Today's blog entry will be my last one for the 2016 year of this particular event.

The photos atop this entry are of a Teenage Mutant Turtle who was riding on one of the floats in the parade. In bygone years, I've not viewed the parade from a place where I could see the floats, but because I was helping my cycling captain, by making it possible for her niece to see the event, I stood at a different vantage point.

This meant that I had a partial view of the floats. I say partial view, because people in front of me were much taller, many of them had a child sitting on their shoulder; making it impossible to see most of the thirty floats —  the ones that did not have tall displays atop them!

In any event. the first two floats to appear in this year's parade were "Big Apple" and "On The Road Again" and I could not take a photo of them. These floats were followed by the floats known as "Santa's Sleigh" and "Tom Turkey." Of the two I could only capture a snippet of "Tom Turkey" for a photo-op; and he can be seen in the image posted directly below.


The floats that appeared after "Tom Turkey" were ones known as "123 Sesame  Street" and "Mount Rushmore's American Pride." I also was only able to capture a few details from each of these floats, as evidenced in the following pictures.




Some other floats featured in the 2016 Macy's Parade were "Frozen Fall Fun;" "It's All Rock And Roll;'' "Free To Play;" "Stirring Up Sweet Sensations;" "At The Ball Game;" "The Girl-Powered Spinning Machine;" "McDonald's Big Red Shoe Car;'' "Treasure Hunt;" "Planter's Nut Mobile;" "Big City Cheer;'' "Dog House;" "The Cranberry Corporative;" "The Colonel's Road Trip To NYC;" "Heart Warming Holiday Countdown;" "Discover Adventure;" "Oh Christmas Tree;" "The Aloha Spirit:" "Fun House;" "Building A Better World;" "Liberty's Torch;" "Rocking Horse;" "Rocking Lobster;" and, "China's Chendgu — Home Of The Giant Panda;" but I could not see any of them! Nor could I see the performing clowns!

Additionally, there were three "balloonicles," known by the names of "Nutcracker And Mouse King;' "Tough Guy Bulldog Trycaloon;" and the Aflac Duck. Of the three, I only caught a glimpse of Aflac as evidenced in the photograph below.


However, I have had a better view of Aflac in the Macy's Parade bygone years! So much for the floats!

The Novelty Balloons seen in this year's parade included Macy's "Believe Stars,"  Macy's Yellow Stars, Harold The Policeman, Harold The Fireman, The Macy's Elves (Charlie, Kit And CJ), Happy Hippo, Artie The Pirate, Wiggle Worm, Happy Dragon, Trixie The Dog and Felix The Cat.

I did not take a photo of Macy's Believe Stars, however, a whimsical character (figurine), who always visits me at Christmas time, brings a "Believe Star" with her, as seen in the following picture.


My character's "Believe Star," as you can see is a glittery gold, and Macy's "Believe Stars" are red, but that's just my figurine's way of being different. She's not as different as she may think! Macy's has stars in the gold/yellow color range that have been rendered into novelty balloons, a partial view of one (in the parade) can be seen below.


The novelty balloons named Harold The Policeman and Harold The Fireman have been participating in the Macy's Parade since the 1940's! Yesterday, presumably because of wind, they traveled along the parade's route at a lower place than they have in bygone years; as evidenced in the following images (respectively).





Both Harold The Policeman and Harold The Fireman have been featured in prior posts here on Blogger and both of them have interesting back stories which are included in the ePub version of Words In Our Beak Volume One. 

The aforementioned Novelty Balloons known as The Macy's Elves (Charlie, Kit And CJ), Happy Hippo, Artie The Pirate, and, Wiggle Worm have all been featured in either part one or part two-A of my blog entries re this year's Macy's Parade.

As for the Novelty Balloon, Happy Dragon, he was mentioned in a pre-parade post, but since he is knew to me, I did not have the opportunity to meet him until he appeared in the parade on this Thanksgiving Day! But due to the fact that balloons were traveling at such a low place, coupled with folks in front of me standing on stools while wearing hats, I was disappointed to not get a good photo-op of him; but I did capture some of him, as seen in the image below.


Upon hearing my frustration re not capturing a decent photograph of Happy Dragon, Steve Mohr, the sole proprietor of More & More Antiques suggested I get my own Happy Dragon, which I did, and added him to a Thanksgiving scene that I have in my home.

My Happy Dragon (lower right hand corner in the picture below) was welcomed by the cast of characters who were here to spend Thanksgiving with me, including Spider Man, who took a hiatus from this year's parade!


Most of the figurines pictured here were featured in "stories" that I wrote for hometalk. These were titled Thanksgiving Decor (Using a Cast of Characters Part One), Thanksgiving Decor (Using a Cast of Characters Part Two), Thanksgiving Decor (Using a Cast of Characters Part Three), Thanksgiving Decor Using a Cast of Characters Part Four, Thanksgiving Decor Using a Cast of Characters Part Five, The Day After Thanksgiving, and NOT SO FAST (Enjoy Thanksgiving FIRST).

I not only obtained these decorations from More & More Antiques, the shop's owner (Steve) is currently selling my Fauna-Flora-Insect themed postcards there! If you happen to stop by the store, they should be in a box atop the small counter by the cash register, but if you don't see them, feel free to ask anyone working thee where my cards are!

But I have digressed! Getting back to my conclusion of coverage re The Macy's 2016 Parade: As you may recall, Trixie the Dog, and Felix the Cat ,were the other Novelty Balloons in this year's event. I featured Trixie in yesterday's blog post, albeit with a different picture than the one seen below.


As for Felix the Cat, I only got blurry images of him! His ballon traveled quite low and I could barely see him what with the kids who were sitting on their parent's shoulders (seen below).



But  even though I did not get any decent pictures of Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat; I DID get great photos of children's hats!

And I also got a few workable shots of the Macy's character ballon known as Sinclair the Dinosaur (below); which is something I haven't been able to do in the past!



Therefore in terms of my disappointment to not have decent photo-ops of the floats, Happy Dragon, or Felix, I am consoled by the wisdom E.B. White shared in an essay titled Remembrance Is Sufficient, which I've blogged about before, but which bears repeating. An excerpt from this can be found below:

"...A few weeks ago she (White's aunt) said something so close to the theme of Christmas that we shall quote it here... We were apologizing for have taken her for a motor ride that morning to see once again the bright colors of the woods. 'Why, my dear,' she said without hesitation, 'remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.'"

Besides hopefully, Felix the Cat and Happy Dragon will return for next year's Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, which is only 363 days away!

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