An Eventful Parade

Due to the wonderful outpouring of comments, I will tell my wonderful tale of the guy shooting himself in the leg, and of course, my getting hit by the car.

This past weekend was Flaming Gorge Days, a festival of sorts that takes place in Green River, Wyoming. Green River is only 11, 12 or 14 miles from Rock Springs (depending on which mileage sign you happen to be passing), so we loaded up the kids to go see the Flaming Gorge Days parade on Saturday morning. There was also a festival in one of the parks for kids with free slides and face painting...That sort of thing. Family Fun for all. Also on Saturday night there promised to be a rockin' concert by Tesla and Everclear. Wouldn't wanna miss that...

So to get the unnecessary details out of the way, the parade was fairly normal, Helen made off with enough candy to confuse parade with Halloween and I got a sunburn on the only four inches of skin I neglected to put sunscreen on...My neck. So all that aside, when I say the parade was fairly normal, that is with the exception of...

There was a float that was made up like the Old West. The front half was a saloon, the back half was a jail with a hangman's gallows. Right in front of where we had pulled up a section of roadside grass, the float stops to do a little skit. The gist of it was lost on me because some of the men (all of whom were dressed in period appropriate clothing) were shooting off old-timey rifles with blanks which made the baby cry. I will at this point acknowledge that "the baby" has a name, which is Philip. Anywho, I guess after shooting off their child upsetting weapons, they stopped to reload their blanks. AND THEN...

One poor guy shot himself in the leg with a blank.

Now for any of you who happened to see OBU's stage catch fire during the theatre department's production of Little Moon of Alban, you realize that blanks shoot off a wad of residue and smoke and other goodness. So, the poor sucker shoots himself in the leg, and the crowd went freakin' nuts. Guys were taking off their shirts to make tourniquets and people were giving up water bottles to cleanse the wound. Now also, try to picture if you can, the one woman in an old fashioned dress having a semi-panic attack stopping all the other floats and shouting "Stop the parade!! He's been shot!!" Now also picture no one really caring enough to stop the parade. All the other floats just keep on coming, throwing candy and driving a wide berth around the guy bleeding in the middle of the street.

So the ambulance arrives, after navigating around all the still moving parade traffic, and takes the guy away. Luckily enough, like three floats after the ambulance is the local fire department who takes the time to stop and wash the blood out of the street. Thanks boys. And at the end of all this, there was a lady trying to return the T-shirts and blankets people had offered the wounded. Some of them were...soiled, let's say. I don't know about you all, but if I had offered a shirt to be used on some guys gun shot would, and then a lady tried to hand it back, I think my response would be..."Really, no thanks. I have other shirts." So ends story one...

Now, let me start by clearing the air about something here. WE did not get hit by a car. My CAR did not get hit by a car. I got hit by a car. As we were exiting the very eventful parade before it was over (I told Luke we'd already seen the most exciting part, that of course being the part where a guy shoots himself in the leg), we passed a little make-shift parking lot. We were going down a narrow sidewalk, and Luke was pushing the stroller and I was walking behind. A big white truck was exiting said make-shift parking lot. He was looking left, waiting for traffic to clear, and I was on the right side, but still very much in front of his truck. Apparently traffic cleared, because he just WENT! And he clipped me on my right arm and hip. I yelled, not because it hurt, but because he HIT ME WITH HIS TRUCK! His wife calmly turns and kinda glances at me...And then they just drive away. Seriously. They. Just. Left. Just drove off. "Did you know you just hit a lady?" I imagine his wife asking. And he says, "Yeah, but I don't seem to mind."

So, after all that blood and getting hit by that truck, we decided to skip the park festivities and certainly we decided to skip Tesla and Everclear (who am I kidding we WERE NOT going to that concert of crap anyway) and just went home to take a nap. It was the most eventful parade ever. The End.