The Parade Of Shame
I grew up with “do-it-yourself” kind of parents. My school projects were never taken over by an eager Mom or Dad who wanted it to be just perfect or an anxious parent fearing for my grade. My dioramas looked like they were made by a nine-year-old, and my science fair projects were usually far less than stunning.
One year I did take home a third place ribbon for “Will your plant grow faster if you talk to it?” (Even as a child, I talked to plants and myself. A sign of genius or madness? Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.) However, I think most of that win had to do with the fact that fourth grade is around the time kids figure out that it isn’t cool to be smart, so the level of competition was way down. Also, I used the tri-fold white board as instructed by my science teacher, and we all know how science teachers like rule-followers.
However, the worst do-it-yourself incident of all probably occurred in the fourth grade, the year that our class participated in the annual historic building parade.
“What’s a historical building parade?” you say. Well, let me enlighten you.
A historical building parade involves dressing children up in cardboard boxes that represent some of the finest and most famous works of architecture in the city. I think it might also be some cruel form of torture dreamed up by a particularly bitter city administrator or school official to humiliate 10-year-olds.
Either way, I learned two things the fateful day of the parade:
1. It is really uncomfortable to wear a cardboard box. Seriously, having your neck and arms rub up against cardboard for a few city blocks is quite chafing, and when your one of the shortest kids in class, it’s not too kind on the knees either.
2. 10-year-olds really don’t have the capability of making a cardboard box look like a historical building all on their own.
I vividly remember taking Polaroid snapshots of my building. (It was Firehouse #4. There was also a lot of competition over who got the “best” buildings, but surprisingly, there weren’t too many people jockeying for Firehouse #4. It was quite a relief at the time.)
I then remember spray painting my cardboard box and going to work recreating what I was sure would be an amazing representation. (I was sure all of my projects were going to be amazing. What I lacked in talent, I made up for in dreams. In kindergarten, when I turned in my depiction of the first Thanksgiving, I learned about the wide gap between talent and dreams – not that I let it stop me.)
Firehouse #4 featured a trellis, which was quite a challenge. It also had bricks of a uniform shape and size, a seemingly easy feature to recreate, but when it came down to actually doing it – not so much. While the first row of bricks kind of resembled rectangles, it was all downhill from there, and I mean that in a pretty literal way since my lines started to drift downward from one side of the box to the other creating strange shapes there were narrow on one side and really wide on the other.
In short, I was a mess.
The mother of one of my classmates took her building photos, made them into slides, and then projected the slide onto her box so she could trace every outline of her building.
I couldn’t even trace a ruler from one side of the box to the other.
Then, as if having a terribly homemade project wasn’t bad enough, I think I realized the absolute absurdity of walking through the streets of my hometown dressed as a building just before our teacher sent us out into the street.
And if you are thinking that people don’t judge fourth graders, let me tell you that you are wrong. People judge fourth graders, and you notice the hushes when you and your horribly distorted bricks are marching down Main Street.*
(In fairness, my sister probably had it worst of all because she had to dress up as the fairgrounds. This meant she couldn’t even wear a box, but instead had to strap a piece of white board over herself with something like suspenders. We used cake decorations to try and give her a balloon vendor.)
So, if anyone ever wonders why my bio mentions an extreme dislike of parades – here you go.
Fire Station #4, on the other hand, seems to have escaped unscathed. It turns out that it just got new tenants and everything.
I don’t know whether or not the annual Historic Building Parade still exists, but every time I think back on my experience then, I can’t help but think there has to be a better way to help children develop civic pride. Would a coloring book or guest speaker really have been so much less educational?
*It was actually 20th Street if you’re from Birmingham, but I think we can all tell I’m trying to make a point.
** If you were hoping for photos of me dressed as a building, I’m sorry to say you’re out of luck. No such photos exist. Thank God.