Sometimes, through no fault of your own, you get caught up in something that you want nothing to do with. You look around yourself and you try to figure a way out, but you are well and firmly stuck. And, not very happy about it.

         I do not know if they still do it, but every year the city of Cleveland held a huge Christmas parade. It was televised two or three times on Christmas day on one of the stations, but it was actually held on Thanksgiving morning. I think the thinking was that there was a better than even chance that the city would be snowed in on Christmas and no one would want to be in it on Christmas, anyway, so the Christmas Day Parade in Cleveland was always held on Thanksgiving. Whatever station was going to broadcast the event always built it up starting the second week of December, as though it had not yet been held. Everyone knew it was done on Thanksgiving but it was like everyone pretended that it was done on Christmas morning. That was just the way Clevelanders thought, I guess. It usually started snowing on Halloween and kept it up until Easter, so it made a weird kind of sense.

         But, even if it made sense, it never interested me. For one thing, my only trips into Cleveland were to go with a neighboring farmer when he took produce into the Westside Market, the huge farmer’s market that is open year round. The city was only 50 miles or so, but it may as well have been on the moon. I hated going there. Big and dirty and congested. Our television stations came out of Cleveland and Cleveland is where the Indians and the Browns played, so I knew a little bit about the city. But the city’s cruel nickname, the Mistake by the Lake, seemed pretty appropriate to me. (Some of you might wonder why I didn’t mention the Cavaliers playing in Cleveland. First, they didn’t play in Cleveland. They played in a little town called Richfield, south of Cleveland. And second, they didn’t come into existence until 1970, and I never had time to get ‘branded.’)

In the Fall of 1973, I was a senior in high school. We were a farming community and our schools were poor. In 1969 our schools had to close because of financial difficulties. But the community pulled together and the schools began to emerge from financial ruin and it became something of an inspiring story. The parade always had the Cleveland high schools participating (and there were a bunch of those) but the organizers always invited and spotlighted a few schools from outside of the city that had good stories attached to them. They invited my high school, which was an honor, but it didn’t matter beans to me. Our art department entered a float and the float had to be built on site in Cleveland because judges had to make sure the floats were built by the rules. YAY. No big deal to me.

 Until one morning about two weeks before Thanksgiving, the assistant principle called me to the office. A load of building material had to be picked up at the local lumber yard and taken to Cleveland for the float. I got to pick a partner and skip classes and go to Cleveland. He said this like he was doing something really good for me. I told him I didn’t want to go. Someone else would probably love to go. No, the only truck we had was not mechanically sound and he figured if something went wrong, I could probably fix it. I was going to Cleveland driving what was affectionately (but correctly) known as The Death Trap. And I got to take a friend.

 We got into Cleveland with only a little mechanical difficulty. (Driver’s side door kept flying open. Normal for that truck.) We found where our art department was putting together the float and unloaded the truck. We helped a little and then headed to the truck to go home. But another school asked if we could help and then another and then another. They had given us the whole day off, so we didn’t mind. Plus, girls from another school are always prettier than girls from your own school.

 Next day, I get called to the assistant principle’s office. “I hear you and Frank helped some other schools.” Wonderful, I thought. He was going to chew me out for helping the opposition. But, no. It was worse.

 “The parade organizers were impressed because you two just jumped in and helped. They really liked your attitude!” Oh, cool! We stayed around to talk to girls and get praised for it! But there the good news ended. “Yes, sir, they were so impressed they want four of our guys to carry the banner at the parade! Way to go! You fellas will lead the parade down Euclid Blvd!”

 “Uh, golly, sir, uh, Thanksgiving and all. Really can’t be gone for that. Someone else……”

 “No, they specifically asked for you and three others. It will be great! You pick the other three and then I’ll meet with you guys in the morning and go over it with you.”

 My mother was a school employee, so I went to her to ask if she would intercede on my behalf. But the assistant principle had already talked to her and she was so proud she was ready to bust. Her baby was going to be on TV! It was shaping up to be a nightmare. I had to get three guys to help me. We all needed to be roughly the same height and fairly strong because we would be carrying that heavy banner a long way. I finally settled on Wally and Gary and Jerry. I didn’t ask them. I told them that the assistant principle wanted us to do this. They did not want to do it, either, but the next morning we sat down with the assistant principle and he briefed us. We would have to go to one of the downtown theaters. (Cleveland has a well known theater district. Not movie theaters, but stage theaters.) There we would get dressed in costume, given our orders and off we would go. It was actually an easy assignment.

Or not.

Thanksgiving morning, before daylight, I picked everyone up and we went to Cleveland. Finding the theater was not easy, but we finally got there. They showed us into a large dressing room and gave us our costumes. Two were going to be clowns and two would be elves. The clowns would wear clown suits while the elves wore tights and tunics and shoes that curled at the toes. We drew lots. Wally and I, the linebackers, were the elves. We looked stupid.

And then, we had to wear makeup, which they put on before we suited up. While we were being made up, a beautiful woman walked into the room. Now, we four high school seniors are not dressed and we are terribly self-conscious. But the make up guys are guys, so it is OK, sort of. But this beautiful woman walks in and there are four really red faced boys. And then she undresses to put on her costume, which was the Snow Queen. These are theater folks and it is no big deal to them. For us country boys, it was a bit much.

Then we were ready. We walked to the head of the parade and they gave us the banner. “The Higbee Cleveland Christmas Day Parade.” (Higbees was a large department store in Cleveland) The thing weighed a ton. We had to carry that thing for miles. And, we were not actually leading the parade. In front of us was a unit of the Cleveland Mounted Police. Horses. When a horse has to relieve itself, it relieves itself. So, we had two clowns and two muscular elves dodging horse plop, on camera, for miles. A heavy wind blowing off Lake Erie, snowing, people lined up for the parade making remarks about the clowns and elves. Towards the end, people started throwing snowballs at us. The cops did nothing.

We were at the front of the parade and the Snow Queen was at the back of the parade, so when we four finished we had almost an hour before the Snow Queen got back to the dressing room. We gave someone the banner and then we ran back to the theater and our dressing room to change and get out before she got back. And, of course, the camera got some video of two clowns and two elves sprinting down a back street with people still throwing snowballs at them. It was miserable.

We rushed to get dressed and scrubbed some of the make up off. That stuff is hard to get off with soap and water. But we were leaving as her majesty was walking in. She invited us to stay and chat, but we were out of there.

My mother had given me some money to treat the guys to dinner somewhere on the way back. Back then, everything was closed on holidays, but we did come up on a Howard Johnson’s on the highway that was open. Tired, worn out and with some clown and elf make up still on, we had Thanksgiving dinner at a corner table at the HJ. Almost my worst Thanksgiving ever. But we did the school proud.

Of course, this seemingly has nothing to do with anything. However, we all have things we have to do or things we get caught up in. Like this virus thing. You do what you have to do. You don’t let it define who you are. You deal with it and move on. We will get past this, as well.

About ten year’s ago Wally and I ran into each other at the funeral home. Hadn’t seen each other in years. So, we are standing and chatting. Someone walked up and said, “Hey, do you guys remember when you were elves?” We just walked away. Somethings are not to be mentioned. Ever.