Haynes Apperson parade, 91 degrees

Haynes Apperson is the festival we do in Kokomo every Fourth of July weekend. Rides, fireworks, the parade on Saturday. I’ve walked in it most years since the 90s. This year I walked with the Kiwanis float because they asked first.

It was 91 when we lined up. The parade never starts on time, so you stand there in full makeup and a polyester suit on hot asphalt for forty minutes. My makeup started going at about the twenty minute mark. Greasepaint doesn’t run exactly, it slides. You can feel your mouth moving south.

I went and stood behind the float trailer and had a cigarette, because that’s what I do when I’m standing around, and a lady from the Kiwanis came back and told me very nicely that they had kids riding on the float and could I not. She was right. I put it out on my shoe and put the butt in my pocket. My pocket smelled like it the rest of the day.

The route’s about a mile and a half. I did the bit where I get hit by the candy people throw off the floats. Did the bit where I lose my shoe. Downtown by the courthouse I got dizzy. Not bad, but I noticed it. I walked in the shade of the float for the last part and let the Shriners go ahead of me in their little cars.

Afterward I sat in my car with the AC on high and smoked two in a row with the windows up, which I know. I sat there till my shirt dried.

I don’t know what the lesson is. There probably isn’t one. I’ll be there next year if they ask.