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After taking up my position in the middle of Third Avenue, I had only to wait about ten minutes for the first unit of the parade to reach and pass me. It turned out to be a squadron of Fort Lauderdale motorcycle police, and with this very first parade unit, the wisdom of placing myself at a widened part of the parade route became apparent.

Opening Units

Was that all there was- back and forth? (Mouseover the Image Above for Player Controls)

No, it was actually coordinated riding (Mouseover the Image Above for Player Controls)

The Color Guard

Snakes in a Parade!

St. Patrick, you will remember, is the person who, legend has it, drove the snakes from Ireland. Obviously, someone believed this early on, to begin the tradition of venerating the event, although today it's just a commercial opportunity. Anyway, I guess the kids and adults are symbolizing the tenuous connection of today's celebration to legend. From his vantage point, Fred got a good close-up of the snakes. Right after the snakes, of course, came St. Patrick himself. Fred also took a close-up view of the stand-in St. Patrick, and you can see it here.

The Black Pearl Fife and Drum Corps (Mouseover the Image Above for Player Controls)   (Click Thumbnails to View)

I made a short movie as the Black Pearl Fife and Drum Corps came by; you can use the player at left to watch it. Here is Fred picture of the corps coming along:

Fred got another view of the corps going by, and I took a couple of pictures as well, and there are some thumbnails at left for these pictures.

Fire Trucks

Local parades seem to be a great time for city employees to get into the act- particularly fire departments. After all, they have these big red trucks that all the kids love to see, and truth be told they really aren't doing much else a great part of the time, so why not put them in a parade? Both Fort Lauderdale and Pompano were represented. Of course, to be appropriate, there has to be an Irish angle, although for some entries it was rather thin:

(Mouseover the Image Above for Player Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

Police Cars and Motorcycles

Sure, the Fire Department has big red trucks, but the police have vintage cars and motorcycles:

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

I think that the group of Fort Lauderdale Police motorcycles appeared twice in the parade- once at the beginning and again a bit later on. I took movies both times, and you can use the movie player at left to watch this second movie.

There were other Police entries- from vintage police cars, to modern cars and equipment, to vehicles that were a little scary in their paramilitary implications. Here are some of the pictures we took of these entries:

Marching Bands

A staple of just about any parade is the marching band. These are usually drawn from local high schools or colleges, and that was true here. But in this St. Patrick's Day Parade there were a number of bagpipers and bagpiper units- like the Black Pearl bagpipe unit that started off the parade. I always find this a bit odd, as bagpipes are associated more with Scotland than with Ireland. Here are more movies and pictures of the various marching band and majorette units that passed by us:

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Player Controls)

And you might appreciate these majorettes- both coming and going:

Classic Cars and Unusual Vehicles

Another staple of most local parades are people driving classic cars or other interesting or unusual vehicles. Oftentimes, these vehicles contain politicians or the Grand Poobah of This or the Queen of That, but sometimes, as often happened in today's parade, the vehicles were just gussied up with something green so they would appear to be relevant.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

There were so many interesting vehicles that putting all their pictures on this page, or even giving you thumbnails to click to see them would have made it too time-consuming for you. So I have put a couple dozen pictures into the slideshow at left.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

Today's vehicles were widely varied and almost uniformly interesting, and I hope you enjoy looking through the slideshow!

You can use the links below to continue with the parade or return to the page for our Florida trip.

	Continue with the Parade!
	Return to the Florida Trip Page