I read today that Muhammad Ali’s grandson is now a professional boxer. It reminded me of the time my son Nick and I had our Muhammad Ali moment.
For years, Nick and my New Year’s tradition included volunteering to help decorate a Rose Parade float in the days ahead of the parade. The big corporate floats were built by professional float builders. The only unskilled labor allowed was from employees of that sponsoring company.
Cities and other less well-funded organizations had professional float designers, but relied on volunteers from the public to do the tedious work of preparing and applying all the flowers and vegetable matter that decorated the floats. The rule is every exposed surface must be covered by some plant material; flowers, seeds, leaves, rice, and vegetables were glued, stapled or wired in place to create the desired design.
Nick and I returned to a float building company in Azusa each year. They welcomed us as they appreciated experienced help. We liked them as Nick was not yet a teenager, was technically too young to be there, but they were happy to have his eager contribution. I recall being asked “who is not afraid of heights?”. Nick raised his hand and we were soon on scaffolding 30 feet off the ground gluing individual rose petals on to chicken wire-supported canvas.
The big float builders were located in Pasadena where they could almost roll their floats directly on to the parade route. Azusa is 15 miles from Pasadena. Once ready, the floats were driven very slowly in the middle of the night to the parade staging area.
On New Year’s eve, Nick and I would camp out on the street in Pasadena, with a few hundred thousand other people, to claim a front row sidewalk vantage point from which to watch for our handiwork pass by and to admire all rest of the floats. By the time the parade started the next morning, the crowds along the streets would approach one million.
New Year’s Eve 1988. Nick was 9 years old. Arriving in Pasadena at about 10PM we found a parking space and headed to the parade route that was about ten blocks north. It was an unusually cold night with the temperatures dropping into the 30’s overnight. But we were well prepared with folding lounge chairs and sleeping bags. We claimed our piece of sidewalk, set up our lounge chairs and spent the night watching people having fun, making noise, getting drunk. I remember cars cruising slowly by with gloves waving from the ends of their windshield wipers. Seemed to be a thing that year. And lots of silly-string. People along the street would spray it on the cars creeping by. The greater the volume of music and noise coming from the cars’ occupants, the greater the volume of silly-string sprayed their way.
A pair of police officers were assigned to each block along the parade route. They slowly walked up and down each side of the street and appeared to be enjoying the show as much as the rest of us. Rarely was there anything for them to do other than tell some of the rowdier and/or less sober people to tone it down.
New Year’s morning. The first thing that happens is the streets are blocked off to stop the cruising. Then a contingent of police in cars, on motorcycles, and on foot make their way along the 5-mile parade route to get all the spectators and their various chairs and coolers behind the lines that had been painted on the street near the curbs for just that purpose. (Tip: camp on the south side of the street so the sun isn’t in your eyes come morning.)
The Rose Parade is a navigation challenge for the float drivers. There is a sharp righthand turn near the beginning of the route and an overpass the floats need to duck under near the end. Add to that the occasional mechanical breakdown, and the parade is never a stream of continuous movement, but is instead punctuated by pauses while obstacles are overcome and equipment is repaired.
The Bicentennial Foundation had a float celebrating the 200th anniversary of the US Constitution. Like many floats, it featured a couple of celebrities. In this case astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Muhammad Ali. Ali was a few years past his retirement and his diagnosis of Parkinson’s.
The parade slowed until the floats were just inching forward. It stalled completely with Ali’s float in the center of our block. Aldrin and Ali were both dressed in suits and stood strapped inside waist-high metal rings that kept them from falling of the float while keeping hands free to wave to the crowd.
The people on our block had gone quiet as everyone waited for the parade to restart. Many were cold, and sleepy. Some were probably bored. Aldrin continued to gamely wave and smile, but Ali stood slouched with his head tilted down. Not only did he not look happy, I don’t think people recognized him; the man who was one of the most famous humans on the planet.
Whenever you saw Ali in the ring, his fans would periodically loudly chant “Ali!….Ali!….Ali!…..”.
I stood up, pointed at Ali and loudly started to yell “Ali!….Ali!….Ali!…..” At first, people (including my befuddled son who wondered what was wrong with his Dad) looked at me, but soon looked at where I was pointing, realized they were indeed in the presence of Muhammad Ali, and enthusiastically joined in the chant. With a few hundred people chanting his name from “ringside”, Ali lifted his head, stood up straight, held out his fists in his classic boxing pose and began waving to his fans. Only seconds later the parade shifted back in gear and the floats glided slowly to the next block where you could hear our chant continuing “Ali!….Ali!….Ali!…..”.
