As you may I know I've grown up in Southern California all my life not too far from Pasadena where the Rose Parade is held every year. I was just curious is that parade a huge deal for people out of the area? Its a nice parade they have nice floats and all but I've never thought much of the parade personally. I've had some friends in the past march in it or ride floats and they thought it was an honor but it was just another parade. So what do you "out of towners" think of the parade and whats its appeal to you? I ask this because a few of the clients I have to deal with at work are in the midwest and over the past few days they've all been talking about the Rose parade and how excited they are to watch. One of them is excited since there is supposedly a float dedicated to the state of Nebraska this year. I always get questions from them if I go to the Parade (why not when I say no) or if I go look at the floats afterwards (they are display for a few days after the parade)
Growing up in the Midwest, it was a big deal. I would guess that it is because it is Big Ten country and the pinnacle bowl for the Big Ten has always been the Rose Bowl. There was some talk about it when Texas played there but otherwise I don't hear much about it in Houston.
After I won the lottery to get tickets to the 2000 Masters golf tournament, I asked my wife what she would want to do that was sort of the equivalent. She said she wanted to go to the Rose Bowl Parade. So, I took her in 2001. We did the float tour the day before and had a bus trip booked that took us to within blocks of the route with reserved seats. It was a little girly but pretty amazing. Every year since she gets out her official Rose Parade seat cushion, fixes Mimosas and watches the parade.
Maybe it's just me, but parades today are crap. I mean... every float is a rolling commercial. And after watching rolling-commercial after rolling-commercial, the TV station has to break so that they can go to....a commercial! yay. And, to try to appeal to younger crowds, they now have "musical performances" by some talentless pre-teen nobobdy's heard heard of, which they're trying to promote.... lip-sync'ing terribly to a way-to-clear digital recording, and of course, no band members present. Was it like this when I was a kid, and I just didn't see it?
Growing up sucks like that when you realize things like Christmas and parades have kids in mind and it doesnt "grow" with you. All I think is...if LA put 1/4 the Rose Bowl Parade energy into New Years Eve festivities it would ROCKIN. But nope, News Years EVE dj set with Moby is about the best the big prestigious city can do.
Not for me, but it's huge for my grandmother. She watches it every year and flew out there to see it a few years ago.
