I Love A Parade According to Marilyn

Time for another "According to Marilyn." For those who are unfamiliar with the "Marilyn" series, I occasionally write about Marilyn, who has been my best friend for over 50 years.

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Marilyn has the spirit of a gypsy. It's difficult for her to remain in one place very long. I blame it on her being a Virgo with Sagittarius rising, as it is well known that Sagges are born vagabonds.

Whenever the restless urge calls, Marilyn throws her Flamenco guitar in her gypsy wagon and heads for the open road. She's now looking-up old haunts of our childhood in Minnesota. The marvelous invention of the telephone, keeps us in constant touch, she wearing her blue-tooth and me with my phone on speaker. That way, she can safely drive and I can play domestic. We can carry on an endless chatter for, perhaps weeks. You'd think we would have said it all in 50 years, but I guess not.

Saturday, she was driving in Northern Minnesota, giving me a live-at-the-moment description of the scenery that I haven't seem in ten years. She had just approached a small town. Have you ever had someone trying to tell you a story but were laughing so hard at their anticipated tale, that you couldn't understand one word they're saying?

So it was with Marilyn. She suddenly broke into a laughter with little screams and muffled words followed by more laughter and little screams.

I said, "I can't understand a word you're saying. What's so funny?"

All I got was, " (Laughter) muffle, muffle, (laughter) parade, muffle, muffle."

"What are you talking about? Are you OK? Did you have an accident? What's so damn funny?

What's that music I hear?"

"Parade, parade. I'm driving in the middle of a parade. People think I'm part of the parade," she finally managed to get the words out.

Then I started laughing. I could picture her driving her van with the California plates in the center of a small town parade in Minnesota.

I said, "Open your window and wave to the people. Too bad you don't have candy to throw to them."

This started another round of laughter. Apparently she had taken a wrong turn and got wedged inbetween a marching band and a briskly waving politician sitting in the back of a convertible.

We laughed for several minutes before we could speak. "What's the parade for?"

"Lobster day or something," she said.

"They don't have lobsters in Minnesota," I reminded her, "Perhaps walleyes or corn."

By that time, the parade had ended and Marilyn was leaving the town that began with a W. Some of the town folk watched the gypsy wagon fading into a tiny speck as she was describing the floats of the parade to me. "And then there was a flat bed with a jazz band that ..................."

Adios Amigo