Budget Float Builders’ Bumpy Road

Colorful, funny, awe-inspiring. Sixty floral masterpieces will roll down Colorado Boulevard in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade on Monday--but there will be little evidence of the bumpy roads actually traveled to get them there.

The process of float building is, in fact, so complicated and time-consuming that only six of the 60 still are “self-built,” the best of which is awarded the Founders Trophy. The rest are designed and built by professional float builders.

But those six “hold a special place in the heart of the tournament,” says Jon Pawley, chairman of the float-judging committee. “This is how it all began”--though the floats today, made with animation, hydraulics and thousands of flowers, and the carriages of a century ago are as different as cactuses and chrysanthemums.

The self-built six--from Burbank, South Pasadena, Sierra Madre, California Polytechnic University, Downey and La Canada Flintridge--are in the planning stages almost as soon as the last float rolls to the end of the parade, says Cel Kimberly, president of Downey Rose Float Assn.

The Parking Problem

While getting the designs approved, the float builders are already looking for a place to build their imposing contraptions of wire, glue and paint. South Pasadena rents a tent and erects it “in any vacant lot we can find,” volunteer Greg Clanton says. Sierra Madre raised enough funds years ago to raise a metal building in which to build its float (“It’s the envy of the self-builts,” says Celeste McCreary, president of Sierra Madre Rose Float Assn.). And La Canada Flintridge finds refuge for its float under an overpass.

By July, while most people are preoccupied with sun and surf, Clanton, South Pasadena float-construction supervisor, is busy building a working model of his city’s float on an Erector set. “If it works with the Erector set, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work here (with the float),” reasons Clanton, who has been a float volunteer for 18 years, learning his craft through “trial and error.”

“We have a motto here,” Clanton says, laughing: ‘It’s not done right unless it’s done twice.’ ”

The two biggest problems the self-builts face are raising money to fund the float and finding the volunteers to build it.

To keep costs down, South Pasadena, which has entered every Rose Parade since 1909, has used only two chassis in the last 20 years. Though the centerpiece of their masterpiece, the rusted frame spends most of the year abandoned outdoors. “The one we built in 1968 had a ’42 Fordson tractor engine, a ’38 transmission and a ’32 rear end,” Clanton recalls. When hydraulics were incorporated into the float in 1981, a different chassis was built to accommodate the new technology.

“It used to be that the whole float was built around the driver,” Clanton says. “We had to have a gas pedal, brake--it was just like driving a truck. Now the driver is no longer restricted. The thing that makes it go now is a rheostat, with knobs the size of a radio.”

With hydraulic animation, all the movement on the float is made possible by one cylinder. In the past, “we would’ve had all kinds of cables and pulleys,” Clanton says. And, adds Bob LaRock, another veteran builder, “a couple of guinea pigs inside to row.”

Before hydraulics were used, the movement was done by hand. In 1975, Clanton says, “two kids inside the float took turns pedaling for two hours to make the world (a rotating planet) go around.”

Cost-Cutting Measures

To save money this year, South Pasadena has returned to float-building methods used decades ago. “Before, everything was made with papier-mache,” Clanton says. “Now they use urethane, but it’s so expensive. We reverted back to the old method of papier-mache and Styrofoam, and we’re spending about $20 instead of $500 to $700 it would’ve cost to use urethane.”

The most expensive part of a float is the flowers, the float builders agree. South Pasadena spends about $25,000 for flowers and $10,000 on steel and materials. Clanton says that’s why they’re limited to a 35-foot float--a category designated for the Princess Trophy. “A float twice the size costs twice as much,” Clanton says. But, he adds, they make up for the lack of size with humor: “We can’t compete with the big (floats), so we stay with the small, funny ones.”

All floats have different requirements, but Clanton says they salvage any parts they can. The movement of the man rowing a boat in South Pasadena’s “Celebrating the Big One” for 1989 is similar to the rocking action of last year’s airplane, so some of the same parts were used. Clanton designs all the motion in the float, which is activated by computer: “It works like an automatic-sprinkler system,” he says.

Campus Cooperation

For Cal Poly, building a float poses some unusual problems: Half of the float is built at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, half at the Cal Poly Pomona campus. “Joint meetings are held on either campus, or we meet half-way, in Santa Barbara,” says Ronald Simon, Rose Float adviser to the students.

Cal Poly’s 1989 float is “Paradin’ Around”: A girl on a tricycle (built in San Luis Obispo) pulls a wagon full of pets (built in Pomona). The San Luis Obispo half is brought down in pieces to Pomona over Thanksgiving weekend on a flatbed truck.

Cal Poly students “virtually start from scratch,” Simon says, and “there are problems with continuity,” because of the new people every year. “One of the biggest challenges is to stay up-to-date, pass along the knowledge,” he says.

“The beauty of it,” Simon adds, “is all the professions necessary for building a float you find at Cal Poly--architecture, design, engineering, agriculture, business.” And the training seems to pay off: Cal Poly has won 20 major awards in 41 years of participating in the Rose Parade, including last year’s Founders Trophy.

Cal Poly is the only one of the self-builts to grow its own flowers: “There are special plots on both campuses for student projects,” Simon says.

“The most delicate flowers are the roses and orchids,” he adds. They are put on the last day, in individual “water picks” to hold them in place, “otherwise they would dissipate.”

The December rains threatened Cal Poly’s crops this year. “You can’t store flowers wet because they’ll rot,” Simon says. “We had to set them up in a warehouse with fans blowing on them . . . otherwise the moisture in the flowers would freeze.”

While the Cal Poly students work on the float between classes, one Sierra Madre volunteer, Lee Elswood, times his vacation from his engineering job each year so he can help weld and construct the town’s float, says float president Celeste McCreary.

Centennial Float Theme

This 100th anniversary of the Rose Parade is also the 100th anniversary of the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Sierra Madre’s “Celestial Celebration” depicts a man pulling a stubborn mule that is carrying a replica of the telescope carried to the top by mule in 1889.

Riding the Sierra Madre float will be Ambrose Zaro, 88, better known as the Sierra Madre Mountain Man. He still climbs the mountain trails in the foothills above Sierra Madre, cleaning them up to keep them open for others to enjoy.

In Sierra Madre, the driver’s seat on the float is a coveted position. There’s a waiting list, and the drivers have to earn their place, McCreary says. This year, McCreary’s 21-year-old step-grandson, Bradley Angov, will drive the float. “They wait in line to be the driver. It’s a real honor. They work very hard on the float for a long time,” she says.

The most visible aspect of the floats is the flowers. “We have a flower committee that’s in charge of measuring the float and ordering the flowers,” McCreary says. “You have to know the square footage. It’s a difficult and important job.”

Downey will unveil its “Transformer Float” on Monday. It “transforms from an old-fashioned carriage into a modern Mardi Gras celebration; it’s really two floats in one,” says float president Kimberly.

Membership is not a problem in Downey, Kimberly says. “It used to be that the young helpers would go out for a hamburger and not come back, so we had to solve that,” she says, laughing. “Several local restaurants donate lunch and dinner . . . it’s a nice community effort.”

Things are running smoothly so far for “Transformer,” but Kimberly recalls a few years ago when Downey’s composure was uprooted by a shortage of red flowers: “We had a real hard time. Someone called Channel 2, and they put it on the news. People brought poinsettias in from everywhere . . . these nice old ladies were bringing us their red plants.”

Volunteers Needed

One recurring problem for Burbank, which has been considering turning future floats over to professionals, is a lack of volunteer help, says Audrey Sumption, Rose Float president.

“There’s a lot to it, you need people from all walks of life, all different trades,” she says. And though Burbank is home to numerous studios, “the only one to really come through for us over the years is NBC,” she says. (NBC has donated costumes for float riders.)

Burbank’s 1989 entry, “The Incredible Picnic,” features bears celebrating an outdoor feast.

The trip to Pasadena for all the floats is a slow, studied process. “We move the float into Pasadena (from Pomona) the night of the 23rd,” Simon says. “We have to go the back routes the whole 35 miles. It takes all night, from about midnight to 6 or 7 a.m.”

From a meeting place on Orange Grove Boulevard, the floats are led in police-escorted groups to their position in the parade line. “Years ago,” Simon recalls, “we didn’t finish on time, and we were running down the parade route putting flowers on the float.”

Gaylord Hammerwold, president of the La Canada Flintridge Rose Float Assn., has been involved each of the 11 years La Canada has entered a float. He says one year the La Canada float broke down on the way to the parade.

“People were running around in the middle of the night looking for parts,” he recalls. “We got it fixed just 15 minutes before it was our turn to go. If it had taken 15 minutes more, we would have been towed through the parade.”

But the satisfaction that comes from the community pulling together to build the float is worth any frustration, volunteers agree.

“It’s indescribable,” Kimberly says. “When you see that float move out, it gives you chills. It’s so exciting, and we know we’ve done the job.”