Red, White and No Blues : 200,000 Show Their Holiday Colors at 91st Huntington Beach Parade

Louise Fazio Boyd, 48, stood on her brother’s front lawn under a tangle of red, white and blue streamers and flags, wearing a red-, white- and blue-sequined vest, a pair of patriotic Converse sneakers and feeling not an ounce of embarrassment.

Ron Litteral, 57, marched two miles down Main Street in a maroon, seven-inches-tall Shriners fez--”big enough to hold a couple cans of beer, though that’d be against the rules”--while his fellow Shriners weaved around him in teeny-weeny cars.

And giddy former “Laugh-In” comedienne Ruth Buzzi buzzed the city, perched in the back of a shiny new convertible.

Why? It was Independence Day, and in Huntington Beach that means playing host to the 91st Annual Fourth of July Parade, one of the largest and oldest parades west of the Mississippi.

Despite overcast skies, more than 200,000 people crowded curbside Tuesday to cheer on everyone from the four-member Koyasan Cub Scout troop to the Huntington Beach Playhouse’s Grand Sweepstakes-winning float--a working water wheel and an old barn manned by the cast of the musical, “Into the Woods.”

Later, after the clouds burned off around 2 p.m., an estimated 630,000 people basked in the sun on Orange County’s beaches.

At Huntington Beach, packed with 90,000 beach-goers, filming for a new TV show called “Lifeguard” took off when guards made 40 rescues in the riptides between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. No one was seriously injured, lifeguards said.

The Huntington Beach parade, which has grown in size every year, was once again equal parts community, family and general nuttiness, with a couple of uneventful arrests for public drunkenness. Along the parade route, dozens of homes hosted front-yard parties.

Wandering through the crowd wearing his own red, white and blue Uncle Sam hat, U. S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), said he hadn’t missed a parade in seven years.

“The President of the United States could invite me to sit on the balcony of the White House today and I wouldn’t miss this,” he said. “Of course, that’s a lot easier to do with Clinton in the White House.”

Rohrabacher praised the Fourth of July as the day local folks “get together and party and celebrate who we are.”

The congressman’s supporters--with bumper stickers proclaiming “Congressman Dana Rohrabacher: Fighting for Freedom and Having Fun” plastered to their shirt-backs--stood in front of a Hemp Society booth and sought signatures for the “Recall Doris Allen” campaign.

Allen, a Republican assemblywoman from Cypress, was elected to the speakership largely by the Democrats.

Along the Main Street parade route, some of the most heartfelt cheers were given to military veterans.

Pearl Harbor Survivors, clad in Hawaiian shirts, were marching in their 12th or 14th parade, depending which member was asked. Last year, the group was forced for the first time to begin renting a float to take 24 older members, some with hip replacements and broken legs, down the three-mile parade route.

“Us younger ones are going to walk,” said Howard Nagel, the group’s head and a veteran of the Navy ship Helena. “I’m only 75, and I’m one of the kids.”

Later, as the group rode or walked proudly by, parade watchers commented on their dwindling numbers.

“Look how many less guys there are,” Larry Boyd, an Orange firefighter, pointed out to a group of friends gathered curbside. “It just gets smaller year after year.”

The Vietnam veterans, strolling in very, very loose formation in a mixture of hippie dress, combat fatigues and dress uniforms, got a standing ovation from the sidewalk watchers.

“I like the military things,” said Betty Foster, 60, of Westminster. “It’s more patriotic.”

Foster’s friend, Eleanor Meeks, also of Westminster, said she explained to her two sons the significance of Independence Day on the way to the parade.

But Deshawn Minnieweather, Meeks’ 7-year-old son, was most impressed by a red-haired clown riding in a white convertible Le Baron: Ronald McDonald.

A crowd favorite was black-hatted cowboy Scott Katreeb, 3, of Huntington Beach.

Hiking up his jeans with one hand and leading a miniature horse named Lexie with the other, Katreeb lagged behind, doing high-fives with parade watchers while his six-shooters plopped occasionally to the pavement.

A half-mile behind him, the “Electric Chair” float, named after a Main Street shop specializing in alternative clothing and body jewelry, was another crowd pleaser. Armor-clad riders frequently jumped off the float, designed to look like a castle, to engage in medieval swordplay.

“This all has been done in the last two weeks and we stayed up all last night to finish it,” said Bill Stoner, 29, who was wearing a chain mail shirt and a metal helmet with what looked like a horse tail poking out the top. “If you live in the area and work in the area, being in the parade is a big deal.”

Perhaps the largest group of parade die-hards gathered at the red-, white- and blue-festooned Fazio house about halfway down the route. The Ciarelli family, of which the Fazios are part, has been in Huntington Beach since the 1880s and along the parade route for as long as anyone can remember, said Louise Fazio Boyd.

“I’m 48 years old and I’ve never missed a Fourth of July parade,” said Fazio Boyd, who decorates her brother’s house every year with the help of her three sisters and assorted nieces and nephews. “It’s my funnest day of the year.”

The city’s first Independence Day parade was held in 1904 to celebrate the arrival of Henry E. Huntington’s Pacific Electric Co. red rail cars into what was then Pacific City. The transit line linked the tiny hamlet to Long Beach and Los Angeles. To express their appreciation, city officials renamed the city Huntington Beach.

The parade has been held every year since, growing in size and, in recent years, rounding up minor league celebrities to serve as grand marshals. This year, Buzzi rode in the lead car to the cheers of former “Laugh-In” fans.

“They remember and still love what I represented on the show,” Buzzi said, adding deadpan: “Or they could just be cheering for everyone.”

The worst job of the day might have been that of Donne Johnson, 20, of La Mirada, and other float drivers.

For $10 an hour, Johnson sat in a tiny nest of cables and engine parts beneath a float celebrating Freemasonry. In darkness and choking on gas fumes, Johnson piloted the float slower than walking speed down the street. His only vantage point was a foot-long slit at eye level.

“I just leave it in first gear and let it idle,” said Johnson, who works for Green Float, a company that builds and rents floats to many of the parade participants.

Though attendance at the parade was down about 100,000 this year, police were still wary of problems as the day wore on. More than 50 Huntington Beach police officers and 22 California Highway Patrol officers guarded the parade, mostly seizing water pistols from parade-goers.

“The parade’s no problem, it’s afterward,” said CHP Sgt. Perry Selph. “The rowdies maintain during the parade because the families are still around.”