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By John Wolfson
Seattle Times staff reporter
Colleen Coole twirls through the blocked-off intersection, buoyant and
squeezing her baby granddaughter.
After weeks of preparation and hours of setup, the Cornucopia Days Grand
Parade is half over, and the hard work seems done. The spacing among the
Kent parade's marchers, trucks and trailers has been good all afternoon,
people are mostly following the rules against throwing candy into the
crowd, and no one has been hurt.
And this is how they like things to go, these Seafair parade marshals,
these 35 or so volunteers in their crisp baby-blue shirts and Navy-inspired
caps.
They plan, organize and run all 18 Seafair community parades each year,
including tomorrow's Torchlight Parade in Seattle. They place marshals
everywhere: back in the assembly area to keep entrants in sequence as
they await their runs, along the parade route to keep distance between
the units, at the end to direct entrants into the dispersal area.
With them are volunteer "shadow" ham-radio operators who keep
all the marshals in contact, talking in secret-sounding sequences of numbers
and letters: "KG7KU, this is WA7NIW, go ahead," says Dick Radford,
pressing a small button near his throat. Radford is shadowing Coole, head
marshal at the July 14 Cornucopia Days parade, and he listens through
an earpiece, nodding.
"Colleen, there's a problem with one of the equestrian units,"
he reports.
Meanwhile, over on Fifth Avenue, in the waiting zone, poodle-primped
llamas stroll among cowgirl steppers, a Viking ark rests near a motorized
miniature version of an Air Force jet, and clowns intermingle with local
politicians. Themes collide and overlap, like a run-on sentence or the
Las Vegas Strip.
Don Dodge, however, doesn't seem to notice. Flipping through his 10-page
parade roster, he sees only order amid this jumble of fur and makeup and
music. After all, he's 73 now, a parade marshal with 52 years' experience
who still works more than a dozen events a year. He'll be out there at
the Torchlight tomorrow, too.
Dodge's father, Raymond, a career Navy man who fought in both world wars,
started with the Seafair marshals in their first year, 1950, and remained
a marshal until five years before his death in the early 1980s, when he
was 83. Dodge joined him in 1951, but he couldn't become an official member
because back then the marshals had to be military veterans. He was granted
official membership when he returned from Korea in 1954.
"It was the closest thing for a retired military man," Dodge
says. "Then, we were pretty much a pseudo-military operation."
Some of that still remains, and not just in the marshals' uniforms and
the radio networks. On this day, Dodge is working the "Bravo"
section in the waiting area, while others watch "Alpha" and
"Charlie."
But let's not forget that little equestrian problem Radford is sharing
with Coole. Horses, Coole explains, are sometimes spooked by whistles,
horns and music while they wait for their turn in the parade.
"That's why we stuff them back in the corner, to keep them as far
away as we can."
At this parade, that corner is the place where West Saar Street dead-ends
at a small hill. There, Michelle Schunzel is spinning in wide circles
as Kazi, a white Arabian, prances fitfully under her.
Kilted bagpipers warming up a couple hundred yards ahead sent Kazi and
the other two horses in Schunzel's entry into panicked confusion. The
horses roll their heads in frenzied orbits and clop their feet forward
and back. The drill team whistles aren't helping either, Schunzel says.
Entering the horses had seemed a sound business plan to Schunzel, owner
of a day spa in Kent, but she hadn't considered the effect of all the
noise on the animals. Though she and two staff members handle the frightened
horses with admirable skill, Schunzel doesn't like how it is unfolding.
"If they're not better by the time we start, we'll have to get
down and walk them," she says.
They finally make it to the starting line, but the horses remain agitated.
Ultimately, the marshals let only Schunzel go.
"There was too much chance they could have accidentally hurt someone
in the crowd, the horses were jumping around so much," explains Robert
Belanich, the group's chief marshal.
A few minutes later, four huge wreckers, tow trucks used to haul semis,
rumble onto Fourth Avenue. The trucks are linked together, their emergency
lights flashing, their air horns blaring.
"Ahhh, we need to keep an eye on that horse," parade marshal
Vicki Hoyt says. Hoyt, Coole and Belanich all tilt their heads to catch
a glimpse of Schunzel, her terrified horse spinning wildly in tight circles.
Unaware, the wreckers happily blow their horns. The three marshals break
into a sprint.
"Stop!" Coole screams to the truckers, waving her arms. "Stop!
No horns!"
But Schunzel is already off the animal. Belanich and Hoyt approach, but
there is nothing they can do. Schunzel leads Buddy off Fourth Avenue via
a side street. She turns up a gravel road, followed by a small entourage
of family and friends. "He gave it a good go," she says with
a pat of the horse's neck, her head just peeking over him.
Behind her follows a little girl in a pink dress and crown. "Why
do we have to get out of the parade?" the little princess wonders.
"Because," responds an older girl, "the stupid horse went
crazy."
Back on Fourth Avenue, Coole, Belanich and Hoyt walk the parade route,
smiling in relief and satisfaction. They have done their jobs. No one
has gotten hurt— barely anyone had noticed, in fact —
and the parade marches on.
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