{"id":1049,"date":"2004-11-27T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-27T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2017-02-23T18:46:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T22:46:59","slug":"everyone-loves-a-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1049","title":{"rendered":"Everyone Loves a Parade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>When I was a kid, T<\/span>he Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade<\/b> was a big deal. Everyone would watch it… and I mean everyone.<\/span><\/div>\n

Not just kids<\/b> waiting for the turkey<\/b> to be done, parents and grandparents<\/b> would join their kids to watch as the marching bands<\/b>, floats<\/b>, convertbles with celebrities<\/b>, and character balloons<\/b> passed by.<\/p>\n

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And speaking of character balloons<\/b>, did you know that the first were Felix the Cat<\/b>, the Dragon<\/b>, the Elephant<\/b>, and the Toy Solider<\/b> who appeared in the first Macy’s parade<\/b> in 1927<\/b>.<\/p>\n

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Here are a few other things that I’ll bet you didn’t know about the parade:<\/p>\n

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1]<\/b> The first balloons<\/b> used in the parade were filled with helium<\/b>, and would have exploded had they reached too high an altitude!<\/p>\n

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2] <\/b>The second year Macy’s <\/b>came up with a helium and air mixture<\/b> that is still used to this day.<\/p>\n

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3] <\/b>Starting the second year <\/b>and for the next three years<\/b>, the balloons <\/b>were released into the air<\/b> at the end of the parade. Cash prizes<\/b> were offered to those who found and returned <\/b>the balloons<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Clarence Chamberlain<\/b>, a pilot flying above New York City<\/b>, caught the Pig Balloon<\/b> in midair in an effort to be first to collect the prize money<\/b>; and the following year, an aviator<\/b> almost crashed into Broadway <\/b>in an attempt to be the first to get a balloon. Due to stunts like these the practice of releasing the balloons<\/b> at the end of the parade was stopped in 1933<\/b>.<\/p>\n

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So here we are over 70 years<\/b> later and the parade is still on, but does anybody watch anymore? Seems like even parade organizers are having trouble getting celebrities to come to the darn things<\/a>. I guess we live in a world that is just too fast paced. We don’t have time for a good parade<\/b> anymore.<\/p>\n

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And that’s too bad, because when I was a kid…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was a big deal. Everyone would watch it… and I mean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trivia","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17401,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/17401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}