I Miss Orange Grove

I have never done anything for thirty years in a row except to go to the bathroom, eat and sleep.  Have you?

Pasadena is all dolled up and prepared for the Tournament of Roses festivities over the New Years's holiday.  I love living in the Pasadena area during this time of year.  Our first two years in Pasadena we lived on Orange Grove Boulevard, the street where the floats line up on New Year's Eve for the Rose Parade.  We could walk out our condo front door to Orange Grove Boulevard and see the floats up close and personal getting staged for the following morning.

Orange Grove is magical on New Year's Eve.  Orange Grove would be completely closed to all traffic.  Big rig trucks would come in with booms extended into the sky with huge banks of lights.  The street would be lit up like it was daylight.  Many of the homes and condos along the street would be having New Year's Eve parties and thousands of people would be walking up and down the street. You would see all kinds of people, some in tuxedos and evening gowns smoking cigars (more women smoking cigars than the men!) and drinking champagne in fluted glasses.  Revelers!  Others would just be bundled up in warm coats or wearing team colors of their favorite that is deck to play in the famed Rose Bowl game.  About ten o'clock in the evening, the floats would start to come in to be staged.  Orange Grove would be a huge mass of people admiring the floats up close, talking to the float builders and enjoying one gigantic street party.

In our first year on Orange Grove, I met an older couple sitting curbside outside our condo waiting for their float to come in to get staged.  They explained to me their job is "touch up" people and have been doing this for thirty years.  THIRTY YEARS!  They work on the floats as they are built and then arrive on Orange Grove New Year's Eve before their float arrives.  On the trip from where the float is built to Orange Grove, the flowers and decorations get a little battered up.  The "touch up" people are on hand with fresh flowers to do all the necessary tidy up tasks so the float looks perfect before the judges come by and the start of the parade the following morning.

Can you imagine?  This couple has been doing this for thirty years.  As they sat in the cold waiting for their float to arrive, I ran back to the condo and put together some hot coffee and fresh cookies Clara had just baked and took it back down to them.  After thirty years, hot coffee and fresh baked cookies was the least I could do.

We don't live on Orange Grove now as we moved to a cute little community up against the San Gabriel mountains on the east side of Pasadena.  But on New Year's Eve, I miss Orange Grove.