Connie's Corner

Celebrations unique to our area...

July 3 Prompt -

Every country has its prestigious traditions.
Some of those are our favorites.
In the community you live now enumerate
the good traditions you and your family are
anxious to celebrate.

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The Gator Day Parade and Gator Growl, another term for pep rally, is a traditional celebration unique to where I live. Local businesses actually close for the parade held on the Friday before Homecoming. In younger days our family lined the parade route in the early morning hours along with others in anticipation of gazing on decorated floats, local tv personalities, high school marching bands, and last but not least, the Florida Gator Football Team. Then, beginning at eight o'clock that evening if we were lucky enough to secure tickets, which were always sold out, we elbowed our way into Ben Griffin Stadium and sat shoulder to shoulder on narrow beachers at nosebleed heights to watch the highly sought entertainer of the evening. We attanded Growls featuring such well known celebrities as Bob Hope, Bill Cosby, and Jerry Seinfeld. Students performed skits poking fun at members of the faculty, and the Gator Marching Band and cheerleaders performed their very best. Sometimes I wonder how any of us have any hearing left...the noise level was deafening. Fireworks at ten o'clock marked the end of the evening and they were magnificent. They have been discontinued for several years due to a problem with damage to the endzone, but I just read they are bringing them back this year and moving them to a different location in the stadium. I'll have to warn Mopsy.

Now our kids have kids of their own and have moved to other cities, and at my age I would need one of those things the power company calls "cherry pickers" to hoist me up onto the bleachers, not to mention my fear of heights. So Gator Growl has become a tradition of the past, but still one with very fond memories. I always watch the local paper to see who is in the show this year and think about all the fun we had in the past and all the changes that have taken place since we attended our first Growl in 1978. Helen Reddy was the show stopper that year as she belted out "I Am Woman". My eardrums start to ring just thinking about it....

until next time...c