Another brief one today -- tied up with work, and with getting stuck in traffic.
How stuck?
How about train crossing stuck?
Well, as you can see, that was just a commuter train. It was not one of those eight-mile freight trains that make you late on Tuesday when you left the house Monday.
Slower than that, a good deal slower in fact, was when I got stuck behind Santa Claus.
No Santa visible in this photo, true -- but the ambulance is the back of the line. Every year the volunteer fire department gets Santa to ride around on a flatbed, accompanied by lights-flashing siren-booping vehicles, to every street in town. He waves at all the adults and passes out candy to the children. And he rides at about 10 mph.
I didn't care. I think it's great. It was nice to sort of feel like I was part of the parade, one that was longer than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade last month or the Tournament of Roses parade next month. Strange times we live in.
God bless our firemen. It's good to know that whatever else is going wrong, Santa Claus always comes through.
3 comments:
We have the Volunteer FD Santa here, too. First place I've lived where that's done. When we moved in 14 years ago, we didn't know about this practice. The first Christmas, there were so many sirens and flashing lights we though all hell had broken loose! Air raid? Forest fire? Escaped ax-murderer? It was reassuring to see St. Nick instead! This year we also had a family stopping at various houses, handing out roasted chestnuts, party mix, and singing a carol or two.
I'd had enough emergency vehicles at our place after my stairwell adventure earlier this year that lots of folks thought I'd taken the plunge again for Christmas!
Same thing happened to me out in West Virginia on Saturday evening, driving down Mission Road toward Shannondale. Fred's photos could have been from there, looked just the same.
And it was a cheering respite from the hurly burly.
Nicee blog
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