Hometown Memorial Day Parade - Part 1

It was Sunday, May 30th, 2010. Memorial Day is always on a Monday now, but for a great deal of my life the holiday has always been on May 30th, which also happened to be my birthday. So on this May 30th, I'd already been to the gym and the grocery store. I'd considered going hiking, but didn't want to miss the parade, a real life bit of Americana. So at 2:00 I went out on the front steps to catch the action:

I don't have much to say about most of these photos, but you can tell that the local politicians had themselves right up front:

Red, white and blue clothing was the order of the day:

Rensselaer is traditionally considered to be the home of the song, "Yankee Doodle." This was apparently a drum corps from Rensselaer Middle High School with cheerleaders:


And marching bands, more of them than ever before:

And another marching band:


This group was from a local American Legion Post:

Right down the main street of town, past my house and my little red car:

And a group of motor cycles, not all Harleys:

This must have been an extra fancy cycle. I couldn't tell:

Sellers of colorful balloons and trinkets marched with the parade:

And this group had a woman behind them hauling a wagon full of ice water. They were no dummies!:
I have more photos and videos to share from the parade and will present them in two more posts, one on each of the next two days.