COLUMN: Waiting for the parade
Being the sheltered Idahoan that I am, I was supposed to be astounded by the fast-paced life in the sunny, crowded region of Southern California. Everything was what I expected, no snow, 65-degree weather and palm trees. What I wasn’t expecting was to spend New Year’s Eve on a sidewalk in Pasadena.
Since it was my first trip to California, my roommate (who is a native of Anaheim,) took me to see the usual: Disneyland, California Adventure, the beaches and to the malls Californians believe supersede any in the underdeveloped parts of the country such as the Northwest. Although all of these excursions were fun and memorable, I’ll never forget the way I and five other college students brought in the New Year.
New Year’s Eve started out with a dance in Long Beach. We danced and sang with 5,000 other young adults until balloons fell like rain at midnight, and then we began to make plans for the rest of the evening. The plan of camping out in Pasadena for the Rose Parade became embedded in our heads. So at one o’clock we all headed home to change and pack blankets, pillows and food.
It wasn’t until four in the morning that we fought our way through the already crowded sidewalks of Pasadena and found a spot to crash for a couple of hours. To one side was a pile of leaking trash, and to the other side of our camping site was a group of bundled up people who looked like they had been there for weeks. The people there weren’t kidding when it came to finding the perfect spot to watch the annual Rose Parade. The street was lined with tents, air mattresses, cots, propane stoves and lawn chairs. It looked more like a refugee camp than a crowd of parade watchers.
As the night, or to be more accurate the morning, wore on we wrapped our blankets tight around us to keep out the chill, pulled out the Doritos and Sparkling Cider, and laughed about how we must look. Down the sidewalk on either direction, the bodies tucked in blankets and sleeping bags looked like a row of dead people in body bags. Our sparkling cider looked more like a bottle of wine and a lady walked by with an appraising look while commenting on our getting wasted. Although we weren’t having that type of a good time, the drunken men across the street were. All night they sang and yelled and laughed. One annoyed camper yelled at the rambunctious group, but they just became more adamant about keeping everyone up.
At around five in the morning, sleep crept up and we were all out until the sun began to peek over the tall buildings an hour later. Still curled up in our blankets, we continued to snooze until a heavy, angry man in a motorized wheelchair ran over my feet and then proceeded to flatten my roommate’s feet. We both bolted upright and tucked our feet in and away from any more danger.
Half asleep but too afraid to lay back down, we decided to stretch out our stiff muscles and take a trip to the restroom. We found a Porta Potti nearby but a Rose Parade worker wouldn’t let us use it because it was private. Private Porta Potties. I couldn’t believe it. Isn’t a bathroom a bathroom? Obviously not, because someone paid some good money to have their very own non-flushing, stinky Porta Potti. I couldn’t imagine having that job, monitoring the private Porta Potti so no one uses it who isn’t supposed to.
So we had to make our way to the public Porta Potti a few blocks away where the lines were longer than at Disneyland. People even brought chairs to sit on while waiting in line to use the bathroom. We made the suggestion that all the men go find a nice bush somewhere while the women occupied the bathrooms, but that didn’t go over well. Instead of waiting in the mile-long line, one of the guys with us ran off to find a better option.
Returning 10 minutes later, he informed us of a bathroom not too far away that no one was aware of. As we made our way to this golden throne, he told us he had asked the homeless man sleeping in the park bench if he knew of any Porta Potties around. This guy was a gold mine and led him to the secluded restroom. Thank goodness for natives.
We got back to our spot in time to see the B2 Bombers fly by and signal the start of the parade. The parade itself was really amazing, but we were so tired we began to fall asleep standing up. About halfway through the parade, we gave up and headed to the cars and went home to sleep for the remainder of New Year’s Day.
After all that, we were too tired to even enjoy the Rose Parade and stay for the whole thing. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t really the parade we cared about, it was the whole idea of camping on a hard, cold sidewalk in Southern California and bringing in 2002 in a way we’ll probably never get to again.
BreAnn Farnsworth is an undeclared freshman. Comments can be sent to breannsara@cc.usu.edu