What's newA festival time tradition: The Kiddie Parade
For much of the Baby Boomer generation, when asked “Hey kids, what time is it?” they would automatically respond, “It’s Howdy Doody time” in response to the opening lines of the most popular kids program on television in the 1950s.
Wagons, bicycles and a few pink Hot Wheels Jeeps are a popular method
of navigating the parade route through the downtown Lodi area. (News-Sentinel
file photo)
Yes, it is that time of the year again when more than 1,5000 kids — ranging in age from 1 to 12 — will parade through the streets of Downtown Lodi on Saturday, Sept. 18, while their parents, relatives, siblings and neighbors line the sidewalks and cheer them on.
And they will march forth in scouting uniforms or in an immense variety of costumes along with a goodly number of floats which capture and celebrate this year’s Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair’s theme of “It’s a Jungle Out There.”
And everyone — parader and spectator alike — will proclaim that it’s a great way to spend a sunny Saturday morning.
But that’s the way it has seemingly always been from nearly seven decades — the community turning out and watching the children of Lodi having fun in their parade. It’s a Lodi tradition that dates back to 1937.
And even from 1942-1945 when there was no Grape Festival and Harvest Fair due to World War II, the Kiddie Parade just kept marching on. There was a reported 1,000 entries in the parade each year, which was quite something for that era, especially given the population of the town which was only around 20,000.
As in previous years, the parades will make their way down School Street to Oak Street before turning west and marching down to Hutchins Street Square where the winners will be announced and all participants will awarded ribbons and receive refreshments.
The Downtown Lodi Business Partnership has sponsored the parade since 1999. Prior to that time, the Downtown Merchants Association sponsored the event for many years after taking it over from one of the original sponsors, the “Horribles,” which started it just three years after the modern Grape Festival and Harvest Fair was brought back to life in 1934 thanks to the effort of then Acting Police Chief Clarence Jackson and the members of the Mustachio Club.
At some point after its founding, the Kiddie Parade was formally tied into the festival by using the same theme — as long as it was not too closely related to the selling of wine, for in the early days the festival was known as the Lodi Grape Festival and National Wine Show.
For a brief period, the Junior Chamber of Commerce took over the sponsorship and running of the parade and subsequently the Downtown Merchants Association accepted responsibility for staging the yearly event.
During that time, various merchants voluntarily chaired the event, several of whom spent several years each running the event.
Once again this year, the children of Lodi will turn out in a parade that promises to be as much fun as ever with several thousands marching along the streets of the city and many more thousands lining the sidewalks to see the annual event pass by and many will remember when, as children, they had marched pass their own parents.
