True Story from a Parade a while back
I was at the Yankees Parade with some friends. We were towards the end of the route, which was cool because it meant all the floats had to stop and sit in front of us as they waited to be turned into the holding area.
We were able to yell to particular players and they would turn and wave and kind of pose for your pictures while they stayed put.
In addition to the Yankees there are extra floats, like random famous New Yorkers and people whose music was used during the season, stuff like that. There are also big floats and double-decker buses filled with staff.
One of those buses was stopped in front of us. My friends and I saw a few kids that were just a few years younger than us up there. There wasn’t anything on the bus letting us know why these people were in the parade. Being the smug NY kids we were we started to wonder aloud what we would have to do to be in the parade.
I yelled up to one of the kids “Hey, why are you in the parade?”
“Huh? Whaddya mean?” he replied.
“Why do you get to be in the parade. Do you know someone. Are you the best little league team in NY or something? Why are you on that bus?”
“Oh,” he replied as he got a little sheepish. “Well, um, Roger Clemens is my dad.”
My friends and I burst into laughter. “Fair enough” I yelled back. “Tell him we say ‘Hi’.”
The kid thought it was funny too and waved at us as the bus started moving again.
More than anything I loved that his response was of mild embarrassment.
