Madtown Memoirs: Oktoberfest Parade

The Oktoberfest parade is a 3 hour plus parade. Rain or shine everyone has a good time eating brats, drinking beverages, and watching the parade go down the street. My favorite game during the parade is horse hopscotch. Here is how you play. You pay five bucks and you get to draw a 3ft X 3ft square on the ground in chalk. You win if a horse poops in your square. Awesome!

It was a really nice day so we had to put some sun block on Isaac. He is at the stage were he wants to do everything himself. So we gave him the sunblock (that looks like a gluestick) and let him give it a whirl. Here he is putting it where it is supposed to go.

Here he is putting it in his hair. Not really needed there but probably can't hurt.

On the lips, ok. Again, not gonna hurt anything.

Yummy, sunblock gluestick. I am pretty sure I have never heard of someone burning there teeth, but Isaac does not want to take any chances.

Eyeball, really?! This is wear we had to take the sunblock away before he hurt himself.

As the bands were going by Isaac started marching and clapping to the music. He started his own little parade. I think if he would have had a band leader's stick people would have started following him.

Hands behind the back marching. Getting fancy now!

Keeping an eye on the parade to make sure he doesn't miss anything.

The Onalaska Band. My old high school. Every year a group of my friends "steal" instruments and play their old parts of the songs. It started out as a drunk thing to do but it has become such a tradition that now the guys stay relatively sober until they have participated in the cadence.

The band expects it and gladly relinquishes their instruments for a time.

You can see the their backs. They are all drummers. Which means they can make a lot of noise.

One thing to note. As they get ever further away from high school their memory and playing gets worse. It usually takes them a few tries to get it going. The problem is the rest of the band cues off the percussion section, so this can lead to some pretty entertaining sounds.