A-10s on parade

The following video from WXYZ reminded me of a detail from the parade I marched in July 4th.

A letter from the Air Force is causing controversy at Selfridge over the air planes on base.

Two of the A-10s from Selfridge flew over the Clawson parade (and other July 4th parades as well). When I stepped off with the rest of Lisa Brown's volunteers, I looked down the parade route and spied the two jets flying east to west a few hundred feet over 14 Mile. I had barely enough time to alert the other volunteers before they flew overhead. It was a great way to start the parade for us.

As for the rest of the parade, it went much better than I expected. I was afraid that the heat and the long walk would get to me. They didn't. A steady breeze blew out of the west, cooling people down. Also, the Clawson parade is like Halloween in July. Nearly every parade entrant with enough members* had people passing out candy to the spectators and just about all the kids lining the parade route held out bags for the treats. Since I missed Halloween here by being out of the country, I got to make up for it. After the planes went over, I looked at the first group of kids sitting on the curb, reached into my bucket of candy, held up a handful, and asked "Who here wants candy?" I was instantly mobbed. I ended up passing out four bags of candy by the end of the parade. I also completely forgot about the heat and long walk. The parade was the most fun activity I've ever engaged in as a political volunteer. I'm looking forward to doing another one.


*The one exception I know of was the group of volunteers for Bill Roberts, who were right behind Lisa Brown's volunteers. Roberts is the LaRouche candidate in the Democratic primary for the 11th Congressional District. The volunteers were too busy passing out flyers saying "Impeach Obama!" and holding up signs of FDR, JFK, Jefferson, and Rosie the Riveter to hand out candy. A lot of the more mainstream Democrats didn't know what to make of them. About the only explanation I could give them boiled down to "LOL, Lyndon LaRouche." Because my passing out candy slowed me down, I ended up beside them several times and got to observe the freakshow up close. After a while, I had enough of observing them and sped up my walking to get ahead of them several times. By the end of the parade, I ended up behind them with the volunteers of a more normal Democratic candidate.

The LaRouchies are only one part of the circus that is the 11th Congressional District contest. I'll try to write on that one later. When I predicted that today's Friday the 13th would be bad news for somebody, I didn't know it would be Thad McCotter, although Mitt Romney is having his issues, too.