Holiday Parade Gone Awry

The annual holiday parade along State Street, the main thoroughfare of downtown Santa Barbara, is an event I normally don't bother with. It's cold, it's crowded, parking is hard to come by, traffic is horrendous, and eating establishments are jam-packed. Not exactly my idea of a fun night out. Still, it's no trouble braving all that when you're actually participating IN the parade, as Todd and I did 2 years ago with his karate class.

This year, his school had a float in the parade, and his class (the 3rd/4th graders) dressed up in cute little tuxes and sat in the float, waving colorful lights and singing Christmas songs they'd learned in choir. They looked so cute and excited at the staging area before the parade began, and they were buzzing about the money the school would get if their float impressed the judges enough to win a prize!

Before the first float took off, Allan and I made our way down the street towards the finish line, since we'd signed up to help with the cleanup efforts afterward. Previous experience had taught us that the streets can be hard to navigate once the parade is underway, so we thought we'd get a head start. So, we didn't actually get to see the float traveling down the street, or hear the kids sing.

Instead, we were greeted at the finish line-- with a float full of unhappy and dejected kids. One of the girls was crying, and the older boys were jumping out, eagerly telling their parents: "They were cussing at us!" The boys, at least, treated it more like an "OMG, can you BELIEVE what they did!?" moment, but they were clearly subdued and no longer the shining, happy faces at the start of the parade.

At first I thought that because it was a Christian school, the hecklers were making fun of that. But evidently, the generator powering the lights and the stereo playing background music cut out a couple times (leaving the kids to sing a cappella in the dark) during the parade, which is what provoked the jeers. According to Todd, one onlooker yelled: "What the [f-word]!? You guys suck!" Another kid told his dad about "the S-word". Admittedly, the float looked a bit ramshackle to begin with. It certainly wasn't going to win any beauty contests. But the kids were happy and excited nonetheless, and looking forward to the event, and my heart breaks when I think of these uncouth punks making fun of them with their foul mouths.

You might say that kids will be exposed to this sort of thing someday anyway, and you may well be right. But that doesn't excuse what happened, nor does it assuage my indignation over the whole thing. It's bad enough to openly jeer at anyone, especially somebody who's struggling to do their best. Even worse when that "somebody" is a group of innocent children. I mean, seriously-- what sort of heartless soul cusses at children!?

Still makes me mad when I think about it....