Still Glowing the Day After

Wearing a Motley Crue T-shirt and a scraggly beard, Brett Roland stood out from the crowd admiring Rose Parade floats on Tuesday. The 30-year-old Long Beach man leaned against a fence and smoked a cigarette with what looked like a faint sneer.

Could he have been mocking one of Southern California’s most hallowed traditions?

“Nah, it’s all right,” he said. “Our mom’s out from Texas, so we brought her out here.”

Roland and thousands of other people were drawn to Pasadena to marvel at the floats and flowers.

“I think it brings out the better side in all of us,” said Juanita Johnson, 55.

Johnson and her husband, Bob, came from Palmdale to see the flowers up close. As they walked along Sierra Madre Boulevard, they stopped in front of the City of Hope float and gazed at the towering display of two children in a go-cart.

For the Johnsons, it wasn’t the design of the chrysanthemums, roses and onion seeds that made the float poignant.

“This is a special one because our daughter had cancer treatment at City of Hope three years ago,” she said. Since then, she added, the cancer has not returned.

Every year, the Tournament of Roses invites the public to view the floats for two days. All 52 floats are on city streets, and will be open for viewing today from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with ticket booths closing at 1:30. In some ways, the affair is more wholesome than the parade itself, weeding out those drawn to Pasadena just for the New Year’s Eve festivities.

This year, organizers had only one minor glitch, when the wrong admission price was published in The Times. The correct price is $4.

“It was no problem, outside of a riot and eight people being arrested,” said Leo Hendler, chairman of the post-parade committee, exhibiting a bit of sarcasm. But seriously, he added: “When we opened, we had some disgruntled visitors who complained that we published the admission fee for $2.”

After apologies were given over the loudspeaker, tempers cooled.

John Flafky of Brea didn’t mind the price. “It’s practically free,” he said. “And you see the floats better than you would see at the parade.”

Although he was a little upset by what he described as the increasing commercialization of the Tournament of Roses, he still believes the event is a hometown tradition.

“One thing I did appreciate was that the whole thing is sponsored by the city of Pasadena,” he said. “That’s local, and I hope it stays that way and they don’t sell out to the corporations.”

Most visitors were content to admire the designs and animations on a day that reached 80 degrees.

Fred Mason, 69, came to California from Ohio for a wedding anniversary and said he doesn’t mind all the bragging about weather that seems to come with the parade. “If you had your choice between this and 4 degrees, which would you take?” he asked. “When I left home, the wind-chill factor was 35 below.”

The only group of parade cynics was sitting outside the fence, selling water and soft drinks for a dollar.

“There’s girls my age who like it,” said John Bowler, 18, who lives across the street from the parade route and is not a fan. “I slept through it this year.”

Still, he likes the business it brings. On Monday, he and two friends made $100 each, he said. Part of their success, they say, is the sign that says, “Se Habla Espanol.”

Said Victor Iglesias, the 14-year-old Spanish speaker among them: “It really opened up the market for us.”