Parade Will Usher in Holiday Season

Is anyone ready for Christmas? Bob Kemp of Glen Burnie, Md., is. His Christmas card arrives in Huntington Park on Nov. 17--four balloons, some as tall as three-story buildings, that will float above the city for the annual Christmas Lane Parade.

Kemp, best known as the guy who builds and inflates huge likenesses of Popeye, Felix the Cat, Woody Woodpecker and the Pillsbury Dough Boy, will send a contingent of gargantuan gasbags to Huntington Park next Sunday for Southern California’s first parade of the holiday season.

The parade’s theme, “Discover Christmas in the Americas,” celebrates Central and South America along with European-based North American culture, said parade official Dante D’Eramo.

Back when the parade started in 1947, Huntington Park had 12,000 suburbanites and a plain procession of scouts, students and recently returned soldiers. Today, the town has 57,000 residents, mostly Latinos, and one of the largest Christmas parades in the nation, D’Eramo said.

Fourteen floats, as well as equestrian units, marching bands, drill teams and more than 50 television and sports celebrities will motor, march and meander down the one-mile parade route along Pacific Boulevard to Florence Avenue. At Florence, the route jogs west for two blocks before disbanding at Malabar Street.

This year’s grand marshal is Julio Cesar Chavez, an undefeated boxer from Mexico who has worked with the city’s youth program. Chavez holds the world junior welterweight championship, and he has a record of 75 wins, 62 of them knockouts.

English and Spanish language television stations will broadcast the spectacle throughout Southern California (Channel 11 for English; the city is still negotiating with the Spanish-language station). And city officials are happy to present the Kemp balloons before they appear in the annual Macy’s Day Parade in New York City on Thanksgiving Day, D’Eramo said.

At nearly eight stories tall--with a price tag about as steep--Olive Oyl, Kemp’s largest creation, won’t come to Huntington Park this year. The reason? Olive Oyl takes $1,000 in helium alone, Kemp said, and depending on when and where she goes, the rental fee runs between $5,000 and $10,000. Keeping in mind the taxpayer’s pocketbook, the city instead invited Popeye’s three-story sidekick, Eugene Jeep, along with a snowman, toy soldier and candy cane.

The 90-minute parade (two hours in TV format) starts at 1 p.m. at Randolph Street and Pacific Boulevard. Spectator spots are free all along Pacific, and parking is available in four city-owned lots a block east along Rita Avenue. Other parking is suggested along the major access streets of Slauson, Gage and Florence avenues. For more information, call the Huntington Park Chamber of Commerce at 582-0909.