San Gabriel Valley : Time to Smell--and Cut and Glue--the Roses
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Amid the commotion of hundreds of leaf-snipping and flower-gluing volunteers Wednesday at the Rose Bowl, Thom Neighbors kept a calm smile on his face.
Neighbors has designed more than 100 floats for 20 Tournament of Roses parades in Pasadena, and despite all the work that goes into covering giant astronauts and baseballs with coconut shavings and rice, he says the parade offers him a chance to “stop and take time to smell the roses.”
There will be plenty to smell: More than 250,000 buds will go into the Smithsonian Institution’s float that Neighbors and his business partner, Greg Jenkins, created at a cost of more than $60,000--very inexpensive by Rose Parade standards.
About 50 volunteers stopped by Wednesday to help on one of the 12 floats being decorated that day; during the hectic week before the 107th Tournament of Roses Parade, hundreds of workers and volunteers will have snipped and glued blossoms on 54 floats.
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