On July 4th, the boys’ Boy Scout Troop participated in the San Marino 4th of July parade, and I showed up to help organize. When some Rotarians and parade organizers came up and asked who would be carrying the banners, at first I thought they meant the flags — our senior scouts (W among them — he’s the middle guy in the back row in the top photo; you can see his face) would be carrying our US flags and troop flags (another troop joined) at the head of the parade. This was my first time, and I didn’t realize that the scouts were supposed to be carrying banners in front of the vehicles of various dignitaries or civic organizations.
So, I started going around and assigning our scouts, two per banner. Then, when I ran out of scouts, I snagged scouts from the other troop, some Cub Scouts, and even some Girl Scouts. I even got two ASMs from the other troop. Then I found out that the third car, carrying the Vice Mayor (I think) needed someone to carry their banner, and I had run out of scouts — Boy, Cub, or Girl. So, I volunteered, and I got Tarin, another ASM, to help. That’s us in the second photo.
Once we got to Lacy Park in San Marino, we paraded around the park, and then we had a bit of a snafu when someone told the lead banner carriers to peel off the parade, near the end, and set aside their banners. At this point, I got things organized enough to have scouts roll up their banners and put them in an organized pile, but it turns out that we were supposed to have turned them in to a Rotarian at a “house” about thirty yards further down, toward the park exit. I managed to snag all of the banners carried by Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and, with the help of some scouts, bring them to the house. However, the Girl Scouts and their banners disappeared. I finally found a pair of Girl Scouts who told me that they had all rolled up their banners and had given them to the people in the cars they led. Okay, at least we sort of know where those banners went.
Once in the park, a number of the Boy Scouts who had taken the Salesmanship Merit Badge got together in teams and started selling glow sticks to the crowds, as part of their merit badge work. J and two of his friends were in a team, and they brought in over $250 in an hour and a half. The next highest take was a bit over $150, so J and his team won the competition for In’n’Out gift cards. They were so excited by their success that, once the sales contest was over, they asked if they could continue selling, and grabbed a few more tubes of the glow sticks to continue selling for about twenty more minutes.
We stayed for the fireworks show, which started after 9 PM.