Even though I had a whole bench to myself in the Atlanta airport during my layover on the morning of the busiest travel day of the year, I didn’t get much sleep because I returned on the red-eye after a month in California. After returning to Key West, I did get a good night’s sleep, but on Thanksgiving, I was still feeling a little confused, as like a piece of my mind hadn’t fully arrived home yet. I tried to straighten the internal ship by walking the dog and unpacking, but I soon gave up on any ideas of usefulness or purpose and just laid on the couch to watch TV.
The Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade has been televised nationally on Hulu for the past couple of years, and it has become somewhat of a ritual to watch it while my wife bakes pies. I’m not sure whose corporate wormhole made this possible.
As was customary for our people, I spent a lot of time in diners while growing up in South Jersey, which is located in the suburban sprawl of Philadelphia, just across the river. Apart from the huge slices of pie, one of my favorite things about South Jersey diners was that, in most cases, at least one wall was plastered with autographed studio headshots of unknown superstars. This was usually located close to the cigarette machine. Headshots of actors and performers filled the 8-by-10-inch glossy print with back-pocket chutzpah, while occasionally there might be a photo of a local TV reporter or radio DJ. Your nicer cafes could even have a portrait of a TV news anchor or weatherman. You believed that not knowing who they were was your fault. The photos didn t always make it clear who was an actor and who was a musician probably some were both but they all seemed to be part of some secret world where fame happened locally but also elsewhere, like maybe in a parallel dimension, or some nearby neighborhood of small theaters and nightclubs that appeared and disappeared with the fog.
That’s how I felt about the parade. The Philadelphia Art Museum’s steps, which Rocky sprinted up, were covered in alternating bands of lemonade pink and blaze orange, which served as the broadcast’s backdrop. Dunkin’ Donuts was the major sponsor. During his several appearances, Dunkin’s head of regional field marketing occasionally gave small checks to nearby nonprofit organizations.
There was a fresh artist lip-syncing to a big showpiece song in the mild drizzle every ten minutes or so. This was typically accompanied by energetic dance routines performed by 20 to 100 young people dressed in coordinated ensembles. At times, you were able to identify the stars. The most well-known name was most likely Darlene Love. A duo called The Former Ladies of Chic performed, as did two of the Sister Sledge sisters. From behind six big plastic donuts, the Sugarhill Gang rapped hip-hop in sync, the hippie to the hippie.
Lisa Ann Walter, who plays Ms. Schemmenti on Abbott Elementary, and Carson Kressley, who starred in the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, joined the commentary crew.
Sometimes they included pre-recorded video clips into the feed, like Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos wishing people a happy Turkey Day, the Philadelphia Orchestra dressed as Santa Claus, or a someone in a studio kitchen explaining how to add edible glitter to holiday mocktails for kids.
The performances that I had never heard of and that I’m very certain none of my friends and relatives who still reside in the area had ever heard of were the ones that I found most entertaining. Though I can’t, I would name them. As soon as they resumed their journey around Eakins Oval, I forgot their names.
I may come across as mocking all of this, but I’m not—at least not completely.
Even on a television 1,500 miles away, Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade still has a small-town, local, non-homogenized, and human feel about it despite being the sixth-largest city in the US.
Watch the Macy’s parade if you want Polish and famous celebrities. You should see the Philly one if you want to maintain a sense of wonder and the inexplicable.
My low-grade reverie was interrupted while I was watching the Funky Bunch (Marky Mark and the, but without Marky Mark) and trying to figure out why they all seemed to be lip-syncing the same portion.
During my absence, Key West had transitioned from the season of “Dear God, when is this choking humidity going to end?” to “Oh man, we can turn off the air conditioning and open the windows and not be all sweaty,” and we had the back doors open. There hadn’t been much of an impact from all the jets and prop planes flying straight over the house on their way to the airport. My attention was abruptly drawn to a high-pitched succession of bird shrieking, which even caused me to sit up on the couch.
The loudness didn’t go down, thus it was an osprey flying low overhead, most likely circling.
All year long, there are resident ospreys in the Keys. However, there is also a lot of through traffic. This fall, the Florida Keys Hawkwatch in Marathon recorded 4,204 osprey. Undoubtedly, some managed to evade the local territorial toughs and find a snag or two to consider their own territory for a few months, but the majority of them kept moving south.
Perhaps the yelling was a bird claiming this area of the island as its home. Perhaps a suitor was attempting to entice a partner. Perhaps it was letting another osprey know that they wouldn’t be successful with this whole seasonal monogamy thing.
I’m not sure, but I began to wonder how much I had missed during my absence.
In order to get back into the rhythm of things and resume paying attention to what was happening here, it was time to recombobulate.
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