Parades Honor Old-Town America

As millions flocked to beaches and swimming pools, folks here braved the heat Thursday to cheer their own Fourth of July parade, one of a dozen throughout Southern California that harked back to a time when America saw itself as a big nation of small towns.

“You’re not a Sunland-Tujunga resident unless you come to the parade,” said Peggy Pickard.

From Santa Catalina Island, where residents kicked off their event with dinghy races, to Sierra Madre, which featured 100 unrehearsed musicians calling themselves the Sierra Madre City College marching band, the annual parades represented a mix of the sublime and the purposely ridiculous.

Sunland-Tujunga parade organizer Ted Mertz, 80, owner of a long white beard and a physical fitness gym, said this 14th annual downhill procession drew 79 entrants-- from the usual small bands, equestrians, motorcyclists and drill teams to Dolly the cross-dressing clown.

“This is our 10th parade,” said curbside spectator Melinda Ebelhar of Tujunga, talking over the roar of the 19-member Los Angeles Police Department Motorcycle Drill Team. “How did they do that?” marveled her 6-year-old son, Stephen.

The 1 1/4-mile parade down Foothill Boulevard began at Mt. Gleason Avenue, which is popularly believed to be the dividing line between the two communities in the northeastern San Fernando Valley. The actual line is farther to the south, according to one map, but this is no big issue in a largely blue-collar community where nearly everything is blended with a hyphen.

The Sunland-Tujunga Rotary Club sponsors the parade; the Sunland-Tujunga Lions Club organizes the annual Watermelon Festival next month, and the Sunland-Tujunga Kiwanis Club does the annual Mt. McGroarty Easter Sunrise Service, one of the oldest such services in Southern California.

“A lot of people here don’t even know we are part of the city of Los Angeles,” said Bill Petterplace of the Lions Club.

Kathy Anthony, president of the Sunland-Tujunga Chamber of Commerce, said the turnout was larger than last year’s despite being just as hot.

The high-arching spray from city firetrucks rolling down the street was a welcome relief for some of the thousands who lined the parade route. Five-year-old Jaime Pickard jumped with delight in the refreshing mist and her 8-year-old brother, Jason, waved from the firetruck cab.

How did Jason get to ride there? “He just asked,” said his mom.

Stan Locke of La Crescenta, dressed in top hat, tails, jeans and boots, was having a good time marching. Locke goes by the name Ormly Gumfudgin and claims to be the world’s only player of the bazooka, a simple two-piece instrument resembling a slide trombone.

Dolly the Clown boasted of taking part in more than 400 parades over the past 30 years. When he isn’t wearing his white stockings, flouncy dress and garish makeup, Dolly is the pastor of San Fernando United Methodist Church, the Rev. Kenneth Gosselin.

Before the parade started, Gosselin ran into fellow Rotarian Ben Gomberg of Panorama City, who did not recognize the pastor at first.

“I’m one of a kind, I guess,” Gosselin said.

“Thank goodness,” Gomberg said.

In South Pasadena, several thousand people lined historic Mission Street for that city’s 15th annual holiday parade--one that eclipsed many other July 4 celebrations in size but still had the flavor of an old, small-town celebration.

“It’s like a time warp,” parade volunteer Gabe Gutierrez said as he watched the antique cars and rows of marching children make their way down Mission, a street where many of the red brick buildings date to the 1920s.

“This is small-town. And we want to keep it that way,” said Joseph Banales, another volunteer and, like Gutierrez, a longtime resident of the town of 25,000.

South Pasadena’s event, officially dubbed the Festival of Balloons Parade, traveled a mile and a half through the city’s downtown and included several large floats, among them one built by plumbing contractor David Margrave, one of the event’s co-founders.

“When we first started this, there were like three people in it. [Now] it looks like there are more people in it than watching it,” said Margrave, scanning lines of parade participants that included everything from square-dancing adults to children towing inflatable alligators.