The Parade Fixture You Never See

Jim Femino has spent 49 New Year’s mornings on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. And yet, he’s never seen the Rose Parade with his own eyes.

He isn’t blind. On Wednesday, Femino will once again crawl through a tiny, flower-decorated door and take his seat only eight inches off the pavement. After a brief nap, he will try to navigate -- from the darkness deep inside the city of Torrance’s float -- a history-making trip down the 5 1/2-mile parade route.

This is Femino’s 50th parade as a float driver, by all accounts a record that may be tough to beat.

“The other drivers all want to catch me,” says Femino, 69, unshaven and smoking a cigarette with a hand misshapen from years of shoeing horses. “I don’t think they will.”

He wipes an ashy finger on his jeans jacket, on which he has ironed -- as on much of his clothing -- rose patches. In recent years, Femino has driven floats created by Fiesta Parade Floats, where he works.

Fellow drivers say Femino’s record is remarkable because of the stamina and nerve it takes to drive a float, with only a steel frame and a covering of flowers separating the operator from a worldwide TV audience.

Inside a compartment with a huge V-8 engine, the temperature often tops 120 degrees. Visibility is poor; an observer in the front of the float communicates -- by headset, cell phone or, if electronics fail, a system of knocks on the float’s steel structure -- when to turn or stop.

Drivers put up with flower petals and seeds that fall on their heads and get in their eyes. And if the float stops or malfunctions for more than 30 seconds, it gets towed. That is likely to cost the driver’s employer, the float builder, thousands of dollars in fines at the early February meeting of the “tow board,” the Tournament of Roses’ version of traffic court.

Floats are filled with gauges -- oil, water, battery -- but most drivers say their only concern is getting to the end of the parade, no matter the cost to their health or their vehicle. If the choice is between ruining a $5,000 engine or being towed and having the float builder lose a $300,000 account with a sponsor, there is no choice.

“Whatever happens in there, my job is to just keep going,” says Steve Altmayer, who has been driving floats for more than 20 years. “Sometimes, if things are going bad, I won’t even look at the gauges. I’m not going to stop and I’m not going to be towed.”

Femino built his record on similar perseverance. In 1948, the teenager walked into a warehouse at the municipal airport in Alhambra, where floats were being built. The son of immigrant Sicilian furniture makers who lived in Arcadia, he was hired as a carpenter.

In 1949, Femino -- then 15 -- volunteered to drive a Rose Parade float. No one asked his age or whether he had a driver’s license. So Femino drove a float sponsored by the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West down Colorado Boulevard.

“I just got hooked, man,” he says. “It’s something that gives you pleasure from within. They are so big and you drive them on city streets. Who gets to do that?”

Driving a float is, of course, seasonal work. The rest of the year, Femino searched for other excitement. He rode in traveling rodeos. He shoed horses at Santa Anita Park and other race tracks around the country. And under the stage name James Howard, he worked in movies and television, playing a succession of bums, Italian heavies or cowboys.

“I’m a free spirit,” says Femino, who has been married twice and has two kids. He’s still married, but his wife moved back to Texas years ago “because of the earthquakes,” he says. “I’m not the easiest guy. I do what I want to do.”

One constant in his life has been driving floats. Some of the first ones he operated were 90 feet long, which made turning the things an adventure.

Now, floats are typically limited to 55 feet in length and built on a reusable steel chassis. Floats have automatic transmissions and duplicate systems -- two brakes, two batteries, two fuel pumps. They also have more power. As a publicity stunt two years ago, a float builder named Tim Estes drove a float 35 miles per hour at Irwindale Speedway.

Driving them, however, is still uncomfortable. Fans designed to supply air to the driver often blow seeds into his mouth. The seats are metal or wood without cushioning. There is no safety belt. The heat is unbearable. Drivers dress in layers early on Jan. 1 and peel off clothing as they head down the route.

“By the end of the parade, I’ll have stripped down to my skin and taken off everything but my pants,” Femino says.

Femino has been at the wheel of a towed float only once -- in 1977, when he blew a tire. In 1960, the float he was driving caught fire just before the parade. He escaped unharmed and, after the flames were doused, navigated the float down the parade route.

Truth be told, it is not the parade itself but the drive to the parade -- “the convoy” in parade parlance -- that worries Femino most.

Unlike the parade, convoying is done at night, making it even darker inside the float. The trip from Fiesta’s barn in Duarte to the formation area can take eight hours.

Even with a police escort and a tow truck to provide power, Femino must steer through passing traffic and avoid overhead power lines.

Accidents are common. If the float does not arrive in Pasadena by 3 a.m. on Jan. 1, it is ineligible for awards and its builder may be fined $1,000.

Once the parade is over, Femino heads home in his 1968 Mustang, has a couple of glasses of red wine, and studies his performance on the parade replays.

Every December, Femino attends a dinner for float drivers. They are an overwhelmingly male club, most of them longtime parade drivers with friends who work for the float-building companies. Some are truck drivers. A few are railroad engineers.

The dinner is easily the most raucous event affiliated with the often stodgy parade. The Tournament of Roses president is loudly, if good-naturedly, booed. Drivers set off party poppers during the last-minute instructions on safety.

Beer flows as drivers compare their fees (from $62 for floats built in Pasadena to $300 for floats that must make the long trip from barns in the eastern San Gabriel Valley).

“My goal is to beat Jim,” says Mark Bevan, a float driver for 36 years. He started at 15 too. At 51, he is given the best chance of surpassing Femino one day.

“But I do this to be part of a community of drivers,” Bevan says. “A lot of people drive once. But if you drive twice, you drive forever.”

Femino missed three parades back when his acting career was going strong. His 50th parade should have come last Jan. 1, but he got sick.

“My only regret all these years is that I’ve never seen a parade live, in person,” he says. “I don’t think I ever will.”