Every fire truck, marching band, fife and drum corps, horse-drawn buggy, Boy Scout troop, veteran’s organization, driver with a vintage car, dance and karate class, and town board from within a two dozen mile radius of Ballston Spa showed up to parade down Milton Avenue Saturday morning, Aug. 18.
The grand finale of several months of celebration of the village’s 200th anniversary, the parade to end all parades kicked off around noon. But as early as 10 a.m. Saturday, local families began to crowd the curbs along the village’s downtown business district for the best viewing spot.
We’ve been waiting for this all summer, said Peg Sherman of Milton, with her husband, Richard. `I’m taking pictures for a photo album to give my grandchildren.`
The Shermans were hunkered down with folding chairs, coffee, binoculars and a cell phone to give a play-by-play to friends not living in town.
Parade organizers had worried humid temperatures could wilt some of the 1950s costumes ` including top hats, hoop skirts and parasols. But when the sun dipped behind the clouds, a cool chill blew down Milton Avenue, and well-prepared spectators huddled beneath fleece blankets. The Coffee Planet, sitting at the heart of the parade, had long lines snaking out the front door as people waited for hot tea and cinnamon scones.
A sign of the recent times: several entrepreneurs filled shopping carts with pink and blue plastic horns, confetti poppers and balloons shaped like cartoon characters to sell to the crowd for about $6 apiece. Most of the balloons remained fastened to the carts at the end of the parade, although a few were bought and sent skyward in the wind.
At noon, Route 50 and side streets were closed to traffic, and a very low flyover by a jet from Stratton Air Force base in Scotia signaled the start of the official bicentennial parade.
The sun came out to shine on classic cars with no door handles and rumble seats, an 1871 steam engine, and a float made by the town of Ballston with a life-sized model of a log splitter signifying Saratoga County’s agricultural history. There was a tank on a flatbed created by U.S. submarine veterans, a U.S. Army 1945 Studebaker Weasel, and red, yellow and blue fire engine trucks lavishly adorned with American flags.
Patriotic music from area drum and bugle corps and high school marching bands filled the air, mixed with the traditional sound of bagpipes from the Galway Gaelic Pipe and Drum corps.
One of the creative entries to the parade was a group from a local veterinary clinic, in which all the employees danced with brooms to the song, `Who let the dogs out?` The VFW Post 358 built an astonishingly lifelike solo plane painted with stars, complete with a pilot waving to the crowd. Church groups sang from floats and nursery school kids threw Tootsie Pops to their friends.
Students from the Red Dragon School of Karate did energetic leaps and kicks along the two-mile route. The local Lions Club collected eyeglasses in a huge recycle bin to donate to people without medical insurance.
In the small town spirit of the village, dubbed the `village of friends,` most people marching in the parade called out to friends cheering from the sidewalks.
The parade logged in at about 90 minutes, the village’s largest since the 1957 parade celebrating Ballston Spa’s sesquintennial year.
`This parade is the result of so much hard work and planning from people in and around Ballston Spa,` said bicentennial committee chairman John Mancini. `In some ways, we hate to see it end.`
The party didn’t end at 3 p.m., but continued with a family fun day at the Saratoga County fairgrounds. Long cleared out of the midway, carnival, displays and food booths from last month’s county fair, there were a number of rides free to anyone willing to wait in line. There was a mirrored fun house, a slide, a merry-go-round, and a thrill ride called the Tornado.
`I think this was faster than the one at the fair,` said Dylan Doherty, 14, of Milton after exiting the Cliffhanger, a ride that simulated skydiving. `I almost fell over when I got off.`
The day included old-fashioned favorites like the sack race and pie-eating contest, along with modern day jugglers, face painters, magicians and a reptile show with live baby crocodiles. Hundreds filled the front portion of the fairgrounds; cases of soda and water were slurped up; pounds of hamburgers were grilled and mountains of cotton candy disappeared into sticky mouths.
Even more people poured through the gates at nightfall for what was billed as the Capital District’s largest fireworks display in years. The sky show was funded in part by a member line item from Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, R-Schenectady, who arrived from a Saratoga fundraising dinner in a formal suit to sit on a folding chair in the middle of the enormous crowd. The half-hour nonstop display included fireworks with parachutes and a blazing birthday cake spelling out `Happy Birthday Ballston Spa.`
`This was a fitting end to our celebration,` said Village Mayor John Romano. `But we may just plan one more event in the fall before the bicentennial year ends. We’ll see how much energy the volunteers have left in them.“