Parada del Sol

Oh the memories of yearly attending the Parada del Sol parade and rodeo. As a girl I loved all-things-horse. I had dreams of growing up to be a great horsewoman. My window ledge was lined with horse figurines and what a loving thing Mom did in getting me a subscription to Quarter Horse Magazine. I'm sure there was drool on every page. At recess my little group of friends would check out the jump rope then put it in our mouths while another held the rope as reins and we'd gallop around the playground. Oh, do you think your mom was a total nerd...the jump rope crowd did. We even perfected the whinny sound! The parade was an almost endless procession of horse-flesh which I loved but I'll admit the bigger excitement was when the ARCADIA HIGH SCHOOL pom pom girls and marching band appeared. Big sister Cindy was the cutest pom girl, marched so smartly and always made the family proud. Back in the days, the pom girls had to hand make their own set of pom poms. I recall the endless flat packages of scarlet red and royal blue crepe paper. Cindy would carefully cut off very thin sections of the paper on our treasured paper cutter that we would tightly twist and then put in brown grocery bags where they stayed several days for the twist to really "set". Later each was tenderly unrolled and laided out in small bunches and taped together. Several small bunches were then put together and taped into one large bunch. Cindy expertly trimmed to exact proportions and we all shared in the end result. Now days the girls shake store bought plastic poms that really are rather disappointing. Do we all love our own good-old-days with accompaniments best? I think so. Well, the parade and rodeo will be here again the end of February and first part of March. Wouldn't it be fun to attend together. How many takers are there?

1997 Poster-So cool.