(WSB photo from July 2008 at California/Lander, where the West Seattle Grand Parade begins)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Everybody loves a parade, it’s been said.

All you have to do is stake out your spot on the route, and it unfolds right in front of you – the honor guard, the bands, the drill teams, the floats, the royalty, the sign-wavers, the clowns … In all, more than 75 entries will travel California SW from the Admiral District to the south end of The Junction tomorrow morning (here’s the map), starting at 11 am, right after the Rotary Club of West Seattle-sponsored Kiddie Parade (all kids can join in!) strolls and rolls down the route from Genesee south.

But the West Seattle Grand Parade doesn’t just happen, much as co-coordinator Jim Edwards would try to have you believe otherwise. “It’s a juggernaut now,” he insists. “It would happen with or without us.”

He commented Monday night during a small but pivotal gathering that happens each year before the parade: The lineup meeting. At American Legion Post 160 in The Triangle – the organization that presents the parade every year (not Hi-Yu, though they’re an important participant every year) – Jim, co-coordinator Dave Vague, and parade chair Walt DeLong took two hours to finalize the parade running order.

If this sounds to you like “watching paint dry,” no worries, click on to something else. But for me, a longtime West Seattle Grand Parade fan – even before I became a mom (the kid is meh on parades, though he has walked the route with us the past two years to hand out candy, and will ride with us tomorrow in our semi-top-secret vehicle) – it was a thrilling first.

In contrast to the noise, the buzz, the high spirits of the parade itself, the lineup meeting took place in an almost-hushed environment, the east side of the Post 160 hall, as early-evening sun poured through the windows, with the rays stopping just short of the long row of well-used wooden tables where the entry forms were spread out.

Turns out Dave had already done some preliminary arranging by computer – a rough cut, if you will. He brought his laptop and set it up on another table for reference.

They group the entries by types, no surprise there. But when creating the order, you can’t just say “OK, drill team, float, drill team, float, band, marching, float, band, dancers …” You need to know how big the entry is, whether it has music (imagine two songs clashing in adjacent entries), is it motorized …

For Saturday’s parade, for example, one of the biggest challenges is the Daffodil Festival float from Pierce County, making its first visit in at least five years – between the float, trailer, semi, and ramp, it needs about 120 feet for loading and unloading. (Then there’s the reloading afterward – some of which takes place in the Rite-Aid parking lot south of The Junction.)

At the heart of making it happen smoothly is the arrangement of parade entries on side streets.

Years ago, the parade used to line up behind the starting point – stretching as far north on California SW as necessary. Now, the staging radiates onto streets in multiple directions – like spokes of a wheel. And that means extra paperwork and logistics – after Monday night’s meeting, one of Dave’s next tasks was dozens of sheets to be drawn up for the Seafair parade marshals who come to help (the parade is Seafair-sanctioned).

On parade morning, Jim becomes a traffic director, among other things. We photographed him in 2008:

That was our first year to participate in the parade – for the last two years, we walked as part of an entry honoring West Seattle Volunteers. This year, American Legion Post 160 is honoring WSB with the Orville Rummel Trophy for Outstanding Service to the Community (we’re working on a story later today with the trophy’s history), which is why we’ll be in a vehicle. (Not the traditional convertible, though!)

As the two-hour meeting goes on, it’s clear that Jim, Dave and Walt have been doing this long enough, there’s not much drama. A little good-natured back-and-forth over who goes where and why – no sharp disagreements, though. So we get the chance to ask a question here and there.

Who are the judges? Answer: That’s a secret. But they do reveal something we didn’t realize – there’s no “judging stand” – not even the corners in The Junction where announcer Denny Snell and special guests hold court. The judges place themselves all along the route, so that the entrants can’t entertain the notion of holding onto their best stuff until they’re in front of a “reviewing stand.” The floats, meantime, are judged before the parade – after all, nothing’s going to change with them along the way.

Also toward the start of the route, you are likely to notice a hub of activity surrounding a card table in the Admiral Safeway back parking lot, where people check in among arrival and ask questions.

Back to those pre-parade logistics last Monday night. Who will be next to the Seafair Pirates? is one big question – because, well, you can probably figure it out … BOOM! at several points along the parade route. (Not to mention all the “Arrrrrrr …”) Here’s our video from last year:

We don’t know who’s winding up next to them tomorrow – and we wouldn’t tell you if we did; the parade-running trio has tales to tell from years past, what could happen if someone finds out they’re behind someone they think they should be in front of. Even on parade morning, it can be something of a chore to find that out – since the staging on multiple streets means the entry you’re waiting in front of, or behind, isn’t necessarily adjacent to you once the parade hits the street.

But it’s vital you enter the parade route in the order that’s been set – because by parade start time, the announcer has his information arranged the way it’s been lined up, even though as Dave and Jim point out, he doesn’t need a cheat sheet for many of the entries – some come year after year, like the Seattle Chinese Community Girls’ Drill Team, and the Seattle All-City Band (directed by Marcus Pimpleton, who also leads band programs at Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School).

Of course, that still doesn’t excuse you from providing a description on the entry form to help make sure you’re announced correctly; while moving entry sheets from the table to the final-lineup stack, the parade team occasionally has a mild tsk-tsk over an entry or two which simply scrawled “Same as last year.” After all, a lot happens between Julys.

Not that it’s all the same, anyway – there are first-timers this year, like every year (among them this time, the Pacific Northwest Drumline). And regulars tend to change things up, if not every year, at least every few.

By 9 pm, just as the sun sets off to the west, not quite in view of the Legion Hall because of Junction buildings like Capco Plaza (home to the new QFC), the lineup is complete. The papers are gathered; Dave’s laptop is closed.

And Walt reclaims a framed 1934 “West Seattle Herald Incorporating the West Seattle News” newspaper front page I’ve been perusing.

It usually hangs on the north wall inside the main room at the Legion Hall – home to thousands of events over the years, from dances to school science fairs.

The slightly faded paper tells the story of the first West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival, with a schedule of events taking up most of the front page. Over the course of four days, a variety of events from an open-water swim to a cooking contest to a “Bathing Beauties” pageant held the town in thrall. West Seattleites were even invited to watch a wedding at the Granada Theater (the bride wore a white-satin gown with a 9 x 4 veil).

And of course, there was a parade – the first-ever Hi-Yu Parade, by all accounts (Jim explains that the original Hi-Yu Association, started “under the guidance of the Legion,” was in operation till 1936; then the current organization was created in 1949, and the Legion remains one of its trustees).

Orville Rummel, the namesake of the award that American Legion Post 160 has given out each year since 1984, was the Post 160 commander that year. A onetime West Seattle City Councilmember (remember, we used to be a city) was the Grand Marshal; then-Seattle Mayor Charles Smith marched in the parade too. Other entries included the VFW Drum Corps, the Sea Scouts, the West Seattle High School Band, and the Boys’ Parental School Band.

You won’t see any of them in tomorrow’s parade – though there are certainly West Seattle teen musicians in the All-City Band – but they’re likely there in spirit. So come cheer traditions old and new along California SW on what looks to be a gorgeous Saturday morning-afternoon — 11 am tomorrow.

(We’ve got at least one more parade preview in the works – the history of the Orville Rummel Award, who’s been honored with it over the years, and our conversations with 2 longtime local businesspeople who are among those previous recipients.)