CKNW Editorial
for August 8, 2000

All the world loves a parade. Well, not quite. There are some who don’t like Gay Parades, for example. I must confess that I like parades for if people wish to make public spectacles of themselves who am I, who does that five times a week, to complain?

One of my early memories is of a parade and I think it was the King’s Silver Jubilee – that was George V and Mary – in 1935 when I assure you I was very small indeed. But I remember standing on Georgia Street with my parents and when Mayor Telford went by there were toffee suckers tossed into the crowd. I was much impressed by this mayoral largesse and I remember asking my Dad why we weren’t in the parade in a big convertible because, after all, we were "Mairs" too. Now I may be confusing this parade with the one the next year which was Vancouver’s "Jubilee" or 50^th anniversary but I don’t think so because I think Gerry McGeer, the man who built City Hall was mayor by then. I speculate because all my books including the late David Ricardo Williams wonderful biography of Gerry are packed.

The wartime was a great time for parades thus for kids. I was constantly on the look-out for two things … the sailors because I badly wanted to join the navy and the Scotties because, I suppose, of the blood in the veins. I recall one parade with particular vividness because the "Scotties" played "The Campbell’s are Coming" and my very Macdonald grandmother was horrified. Usually they played Scotland The Brave which was much better. By the war’s end I wasn’t quite as fond of parades because I found myself in quite a few of them carrying a rifle that was pretty heavy for a 12 and 13 year old who had, in a youthful burst of patriotism egged on by the endless propaganda of the movie world, joined both the army and navy cadets. I should add that my enthusiasm for going to war, so high in 1945 when I was 14, diminished considerably by the time I was 19 and the Korean War began and I realized that the bad guys were trying to kill us good guys.

Parades can be very evocative affairs. The Protestant marches in Northern Ireland for example. And I have no doubt that for pacifists the parades of war can be both depressing and irksome and one can only imagine how they appear to those bereaved by war. But there are the Remembrance Day parades, of course, which are for an ever diminishing, sadly, number, part of the healing process. Some parades like those of the Shriners or the PNE are just fun. Damned nuisances to those who can’t drive their normal routes but mostly just good, harmless fun of which we could use much more in this sad world.

But what about Gay Pride Days?

Well, I say live and let live. I wouldn’t look out my window at one passing but then there aren’t many things that I would do that for since I’m terrified of heights and we work on the 21^st floor. I suppose they’re a nuisance to those who are driving their cars that day and it must irk politicians to feel obliged to give up some family time for what is distinctly not a family oriented event.

They’re "in your face" sorts of affairs but so are lots of parades.

Quite honestly I think the whole issue is a yawner and in the great scheme of things, so far down the list of important issues as to be absolutely out of sight.

In fact, if it weren’t such a deadly slow time for news I think I could have easily got past this year’s spate of Gay Parades on this continent without giving it any attention whatsoever. Which I promise to do hereafter even if Mayor Philip Owen joins George Puil in drag as part of a daisy chain.