A Parade for the Other Folks Part 1

I went to the Minneapolis May Day parade today and what an interesting experience! No military squadrons, no guns, but a whole lot of other opinions from a wide variety of nontraditional groups.
Does your holiday parade have your local Roller Derby team featured in it?



How about the Atheists? Do they march in your local parades?



And the Clean Needle people?



We also had the Falun Ta fa (?) people performing their special version of Tai Chi



It was areally amazing event. Before the parade even started we were entertained by some nasty looking bikers:





Then the parade officially started with this beautiful lady:



The whole parade had a water theme. Here was a swamp witch.



I'm not sure how this was related to water but he was followed by a beautiful dragon,... er... sea serpent.





Most of the floats and marchers did have an obvious water theme. Here is a bevy of jelly fishe(es?) Or should that be a flotsam?





And here was a school of clown fish!

Parade For Other Folks, Part 2

This parade had many different bands including this New Orleans style band.



For some reason they lay down in the middle of the street for a while. I loved their goofy clothes and bad chorus line marching steps.



This guy had really cool dangling skulls on the side of his hat.



Here was a sea horse, who accompanied a mermaid on a sea snail and the clown fish I already showed.



There wre all manner of frogs (many clever ones not pictured. This fife band:



and these lily pads:



There was also this underwater goddess.



There was this guy:



And then a very serious part in which we were warned against the dangers of plastic bottled waters. We got to see the longest water works in any parade ever accompanied by all kinds of water appliances, toilets, bathtubs, showers, washing machines. The pipe works stretched almost a complete block.



I don't know what to say about this one:



And I guess this is the result of drinking all that bottled water:



There was also this other sea monster made of those same old evil bottles.



There was this polar bear - which was probably my very favorite piece. The person inside knew how to control the
limbs beautifully and gracefully and it was sheer pleasure to watch him maneuver the bear up the street.



Blue was a big color for water beings.



This was a pretty impressive animal too although I don't know if it was a grey wolf or a dog - I wasn't sure how it connected to all the water themed characters.



There were plenty of other beings that I have not mentioned. There was a guy who turned his clothing into a bag and just lay down in the middle of the street like a rock. There was also a floating water baby and people wearing all kinds of plastic fiendish masks cut from gallon water jugs.

Parade for the Other Folks, Part 3

I love the colorful costumes and different themes of the people in the parade.



Fantasy mixed with politics.



Remember these guys?




I've never seen a parade where dogs were more welcome.





There were many dogs in the audience too - some who growled and others who sat happily and watched the goings on.

There were several antiwar groups



Most of these were found after the official parade had ended. Nonetheless the parade was not over, til it was over. After the official parade, there were all kinds of unoffical parade entries. Soem of the first entries I showed you in Part 1 belonged in this latter group.





After the parade there was a May pole in the park and many concerts and lots of fun!

People sat and listened to music,



...they went boating ...



... and they had a great time!