Floating Toward the Rose Parade

Around the Rose Bowl last week, the scene was organized chaos as float decorators scampered beneath circus-sized tents to assemble the various entries. The floats were color-coded to aid the volunteers in their work. An eclectic mixture of scout troops and senior citizens labored with glue and flowers on the colossal paint-by-the-numbers projects.

“The volunteers are key, they always are,” said Dennis Charles Midyett, owner of DC Arts, which is building “All Aboard for Pasadena,” a floral replica of the first train to hit town in 1885. “We do all the building, but when it comes to the end, nothing would happen without them.”

Midyett realizes that volunteering isn’t for everybody.

“It’s cold, it’s tedious and they get glue in their hair that they can’t get out for weeks,” he acknowledged.