Chasing the gloom with flowers and fantasy

I took one look outside and knew Friday was an ideal day for staying in -- a cold, foggy morning made to order for sleeping off too much champagne and rum punch and enjoying a mindless episode of Maury Povich.

Instead, there I was among thousands of shivering Rose Parade fanatics tramping around a Pasadena park, oohing and aahing over wilting flowers.

I’m not much for parades. The only way I’ll be curbside is if one of my children is twirling a baton, riding a horse or waving from a float while wearing a tiara.

Yet coming out for the post-parade hoopla seemed like a good idea on New Year’s Day, when the combination of sunny skies and an effervescent Stephanie Edwards gave the televised Rose Parade a vibe that made me wonder if I was missing out on something.

So I bundled up and headed to Pasadena.

It’s got none of the thrill of a football game or the pomp of the parade extravaganza. In fact, Friday’s annual float show had all the things we hate in Los Angeles -- cold weather, crowds, parking hassles.

Yet, the chance to get up close and personal with floats that look like fantasies from the sidewalk as they glide by is enduringly popular. The floats are parked outside Pasadena High School at the intersection of Sierra Madre and Washington boulevards, and the showcase continues today.

“I like watching the parade on TV, so I thought it would be cool to come and actually see floats in person,” said 19-year-old Adriena Chavez, a Cerritos College student with a pierced nose and purple-tinged hair. She was there with her boyfriend and her family. And enjoying it more than she expected.

The day wasn’t without its trouble. Three school buses shuttling visitors from the parking lot to the floats on Friday morning had their windows shot out with a BB gun; glass spattered several frightened passengers; no one was injured.

But everyone I talked to surveying the floats was having fun, even when the floats didn’t deliver on the excitement they promised.

Jenny Merrithew had to soothe her son Parker Chodorow and niece Vanessa Lafirenza. The 3-year-olds had watched the parade on TV and expected to see Dorothy on the Wizard of Oz float. “They were a little disappointed,” Merrithew said as she searched for “the Elmo float” as consolation.

Diana Tatlock had five little children lined up nearby, as she passed out pretzels to shore them up for more walking. The high point of their day wasn’t a float but a skateboarding dog sponsored by a dog food company.

Unlike Tatlock’s brood, I made it only about halfway through the two-mile course. I was cold and tired and found myself agreeing with 76-year-old Helen Guzman.

“It’s nice,” she said, “but it’s too much walking.” But Guzman wasn’t sorry she went with her daughter, son-in-law and 12-year-old grandson. “It’s nice to be with the family, something we can do together.”

I could tell Johnny and Curtis Roberson felt the same way. I spotted the brothers, ages 66 and 64, standing side by side snapping photos of each float they passed.

Johnny has lived in nearby Altadena for 25 years. He has spent more New Year’s Eves than he cares to count camped out on the parade route with his son and daughter. “We used to put a sleeper sofa on Colorado and Lake and let it out,” he said. “And we’d get roses from the flower mart and sell them for souvenirs for a dollar.”

Every year, he ferried friends and out-of-town family members to the post-parade exhibition. “I’d just drop them off and leave,” he said. “I never had much interest in staying.”

This year, he came at his brother’s suggestion. “My wife is in Africa for a visit,” Curtis said. “I didn’t want to just sit around my house in Gardena. I’d never been, so I said, ‘Let’s go.’ ”

A lot has changed in the half-century since Johnny first attended a Rose Parade, driving up with his teenage buddies from Compton. Now there are downloadable tours and interactive displays and noisy, mechanical dragons spewing smoke from flower-studded nostrils.

But one thing hasn’t changed: It still comes down to petals and glue and the thousands of hands that bring them together.

--

sandy.banks@latimes.com