Hello – it has been a while since I posted on my blog.
Here I am to tell you a few things going on.
On June 5, 2023 I ran in Roxbury’s 5K race – in the pouring rain. I did the race in 39’00”. I placed 5th out of 5 in my age category…. a very good pace and accomplishment.
I have been running 4 miles daily at the Horseshoe Lake for several weeks – usually 6 days a week, this week because of rain it has only been 3 times so far. It is good exercise and a lot of fun to be out there again.
I have been baking cookies weekly here is a sampling of them
I recently wrote a fictional piece which follows.
A First-Time Float
I went to my first parade when I was a kid. There were fire trucks, bands, and floats from the high school and other areas. When we moved to New Jersey, there were parades on Memorial Day here in town, but no floats.
It was many years later that I was on a committee to organize a more majestic type of parade.
What was to be the goal?,I thought. Someone suggested something like the Rose Bowl Parade. I thought there was a lot of money spent on that parade – money we didn’t have – but maybe we could use that for some ideas…
Would we do a float with real flowers or artificial ones? Would there be music? How would we pull the float? One of the members, Stephen, had a pick-up truck with a hitch that he said he could use to tow the float, so that was one thing solved.
Another member of the group, Theresa, said she and her husband had a trailer with a flat bed of plywood that we could build on.
We were on our way. Another member, Thomas, had spare lumber and shingles.
We went to work and assembled a small shed-like structure with a window and a doorway. We painted shutters around the windows and door frame We put up planters and planted artificial flowers in them. There was a battery powered CD played, and we would play dancing and jazz music on it. I had some speakers that could be mounted on to the float as well.
We went to the thrift store and got some clothes that looked old, and we found an old banjo. We were ready to rock and roll (even if that wasn’t the type of music we were playing)! We added a mix of real and artificial flowers around the trailer to cover up the metal frame.
All of us on the committee arrived a little after 8:00 in the morning and lined up to be the 6th team in the parade, right towards the middle. We were behind the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts so our music would not be drowned out by the high school band.
Once our part of the parade started moving, we turned up the music; one of the members strummed the banjo like he was playing it. We all made like we were singing, and we had some candies that we were giving out to the kids.
We got many cheers along the way, and some of the kids walked up to get a closer look ; we welcomed them and gave them extra candy.
At the end of the parade, we assembled in the parking lot of Horseshoe Lake. We had a nice lunch and then there were awards. We took 5th place out of ten floats! Right in the middle for our first time – that was an accomplishment. Maybe next time we’ll get some instruments and learn to play a song ourselves: we could get 1st place for that!
Conclusion
I am thankful to God for the ability to run. Any form of moving exercise is good for you, you do not have to run, a brisk walk or even a slow walk benefits your health tremendously.
I wish everyone good health and happiness…..
Be well!!
What a great little story! Wouldn’t it be nice if it were real. Good to see you are back on the “blog” routine.