Please add your comments at the end of these posts - i.e. what do you remember?? How was 2007 for you? What adventures are you planning for 2008? What's new in the zoo for you, McGoo - lol!
http://www.burbankrosefloat.com/
Foreman and volunteer Burt Ballard, works on some of the main figures for the Burbank's 2008 Rose Parade Float Thursday.
Burbank Ledger Published Dec 28, 2007 - 22:34:17 PST
New Year’s float about to blossom
Crew is putting hours of work in to ensure that every flower, berry and accessory will be in place for the Rose Parade.
By Rachel Kane
As the new year nears, hundreds of volunteers are putting the final floral touches on Burbank’s Rose Parade float entry. This year’s float, titled “Oktoberfest,” will depict flute-playing squirrels and a merry German beer maiden serving a man in front of a cottage. It will also feature a live Oom-pa-pa band and dance troupe called Die Gemutlichen Schuhplattler, who have been instructing 20 people who will dance alongside and on the float during the parade.
But during Deco Week, the time from Christmas Eve until the night before New Year’s Day when people, flowers and foliage descend upon the decorating barn, it’s all about troubleshooting and time-consuming decorating. This year’s team has their hands full.
“This is the tallest float we have ever built,” said John Hames, Burbank Tournament of Roses Assn. president. The float raises and lowers on a hydraulics system but at its highest point is about 27 feet tall, with many movable parts and animated figures throughout. Float workers on Thursday made adjustments and hammered out the kinks in the movements of some of the doll figures that wave from the windows of the float’s cottage.
“They’re trying to lower the doll so that the doll pops out and waves, and right now, also, we’re busy decorating all over,” Hames said. Nothing is ever final in the float-design game, and fine tuning is done up to the last minute. “You have to test everything out even if you think it’s going to work,” said Carol Cotter, decorations committee chairperson.
“It’s amazing how it was designed,” Cotter said. “It was a real challenge for them.” Most of the dried items and some of the more than 26,000 flowers had been delivered to the float barn by then. Cocoa shavings, carnations, roses, chrysanthemums, cranberries and even cabbage have been incorporated into 2008’s design. Every detail of the float, from the trim on the cottage to the eyebrows of the beer maiden, must be covered in some form of vegetation or flower before it is judged Monday morning and hits the parade route Tuesday. But some parts of the design were more time-consuming than others. Robin Hanna spent an untold number of hours crocheting window curtains and dainty handkerchiefs from raffia, a kind of flexible straw-like material.
“I probably got about 12 hours work into one seat cover,” Hanna said. Even with the volunteers and crew members working from 9 a.m. to a little past midnight most days, they are still cutting things close, said Steve Edward, design committee chairman for the Burbank Rose Float Assn.
On Thursday, the crew was behind in their work, but Edward was confident everything would come through. “It’ll happen,” Edward said. “It’ll come together somehow. It’s all magic.”
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Burbank's 1932 Float
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And Cathy Nicholls Coyle just sent an email which listed a bunch of "REMEMBER THESE?" which you can enjoy seeing by clicking HERE!
Remember the trauma of loosing your skate key?
Remember Beenie and Cecil, the sea-sick sea serpent?
Remember "I Remember Mama" on television?
Remember doing the twist with your friends while listening to Chubby Checker on the radio?
Remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? Mine was Mrs. Winter at Miller - loved her and loved the class especially when I got to paint!
What do you remember? Post it in the comments below 'cuz we all want to know!
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