DATELINE: HONORING THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO'VE SERVED THROUGH REMEMBERING AND HONORING THEM!
Speeding police vehicles with blaring sirens, misbehaving and unsupervised children, adults who don't respect personal space, competing car stereos turned up to bone-rattling levels, public defecation, and people walking in the middle of the street — just another normal day in Canoga Park, right?
Not by a long shot: Today was our Memorial Day Parade, and all of the above was just part of the fun! Well, except for the misbehaving and unsupervised children and their clueless parents crowding our army of photographers as they tried to professionally do their job, but after all, this is Canoga Park — what did we expect from such a gregarious, hands-on community? We love you, Canoga Parkians!
And by the way — what a parade it was!
Did You Know?™ Today's was Canoga Park's 26th Annual Memorial Day Parade. The parade started in 1989 as a means for the City of Los Angeles Department of Public Health to get area residents out of their homes for a few hours so exterminators could go in and mass-fumigate all residential structures for pests, since Canoga Park was then facing an unprecedented carpet beetle infestation that the City Council was terrified was going to spread to the nicer parts of Winnetka and expand exponentially from there. Hollywood legend and former Woodland Hills resident Herb Edelman — you'll remember him as Dorothy's ex-husband Stan on "Golden Girls" — did his part by acting as the parade's first grand marshall.
Since then the parade has grown by leaps and bounds, getting bigger and better every year. As for the carpet beetles, they're one thing on Memorial Day we'd like to forget!
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| Some of the gang from Wings Over Wendy's - a group of veterans and friends who meet Mondays at 9 a.m. at Wendy's at Victory & Platt in West Hills. |
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| The Pasadena Scottish Pipes & Drums. |
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| Congressman Brad Sherman. Did you get one of his complimentary combs? We did! |
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| Assemblyman Matt Dababneh waves to the crowd. |
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| There were more horses this year than you could shake a shovel at! And speaking of which... |
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...Here are the unsung heroes of the parade who were there to clean things up if need be. Lucky
for them, Mayor Garcetti didn't make an appearance this year, so there wasn't as much manure.
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| LA City Council member Bob Blumenfield who represents District 3 — that's our own Canoga Park (and other, lesser areas that aren't worth mentioning). |
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And here's LA City Council member Mitch Englander, who was granted special dispensation by
Councilman Blumenfield to be allowed to visit Canoga Park from his district of Westeros Hills.
He will no doubt offer something in return, as it is said that an Englander always pays his debts.
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Of special note is the vanity plate on the front of councilman Englander's chariot. An unfortunate
oversight? Or the first volley in a Machiavellian plot by a rival looking to politically cripple
Mitch before the next city council election, "House of Cards"-style? ...Aah, probably the former.
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| Hard to see, but that's Capt. Ryan (on the passenger side), commanding officer of the Topanga area. |
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| "Saluting the Price of Freedom" was this year's parade theme. |
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| Here comes American Legion Post 826 in a great old-timey fire engine. |
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| More folks from the American Legion. |
Memorial Day Coverage Part II
Memorial Day Coverage Part III
Memorial Day Coverage Part IV
Correction: Herb Edelman was not the parade's first grand marshall, although there is no evidence to suggest he did not maybe attend the parade, or was not inconvenienced by parade-related traffic and street closures. We regret the error.
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