IHSAA Football Week 6

City High beat up Cedar Rapids Washington, 31-0, last night in the organization game at Kingston Stadium (all the CR public teams play at Kingston, so one weekly game needs to be played Thursday), and none of the other local high school football games appealed to me, so tonight I opted to watch the Iowa homecoming parade.

Even if there had been a marquee match-up on the high school gridiron, I would not have missed the Iowa homecoming parade. Attending the parade is a longtime family tradition; I saw each parade between 1985 and 2000. Since then, however, I have only been to three, including tonight’s. I only went once while a student at Iowa. Shameful.

The parades are cool, but not as cool as they were when I was a kid. Back then they were magical. The procession of bands and floats for student groups and Greek houses was exciting. Plus, the candy thrown to the crowd was nice. Not much has really changed, but tonight I noticed the student floats are a lot less creative and elaborate. Back in the day each fraternity and sorority house had a float, or teamed up for a float, which was a painstakingly built masterpiece of papier-mâché. Now they’re shit. They can’t even be called floats. People sit the back of a truck, blast music, cheer, and a sign draped over the side tells the crowd who they are. There was one decent float this year, which would have fit right in in the homecoming parades of yore: a replica of the famous Deathmobile from Animal House.

The route was packed with people, as I always remember it being, and many watched from their apartment and office windows. When I was a kid, we sat on Washington Street in front of the old Press-Citizen building, just after the starting point. The crowd was always thick there, and the parade participants were super energized. When the bands marched by, I loved when the drum line passed. The rhythmic concussion of the beat reverberated through my entire body, and it felt like my heart was beating in sync with the drummers. Tonight was no different, though I sat on Jefferson and then on Iowa, the second half of the route. I have to say, the parade is a lot less spirited at that point; the powerful and intoxicating pep has been exhausted. If I’m still in town for the parade next year, I will go back to Washington Street.

One thing I hate about parades, especially the Iowa homecoming: the unexpected siren sounds and horn blasts from the cop cars and fire engine leading the way. I dread that shit. The pigmobiles are not so bad, but when the fire engine approaches I grind my teeth. The horn blasts scared the shit out of me during my first homecoming parade (I was two or three) and the trauma made a huge impression on me. To this day I am alarmed by car horns. Thankfully, this year the fire engine passed without making itself heard.

The end of a parade is always sad, but the conclusion to this year’s edition gave me Huntington Beach flashbacks. At the very end, behind the official “End of Parade” sign, was a group of bicyclists and the Geoff’s Bike & Ski truck. HB’s Fourth of July parade was always followed by a huge group of bicyclists — “the bike people” as my uncle called them. It was a very unexpected Surf City connection.

Overall it was a nice off-week from high school football. Next Friday, however, I will need some Friday Night Lights to carry me through the Hawkeyes’ off-week.