Friday, September 2, 2005

Making Wagon Days happen


Competing with Hollywood's grandest tradition of hyperbole and florid verbiage, this weekend's Wagon Days celebration involves "a cast of hundreds, arrayed against a backdrop of breathtaking Western glory and grandeur that is sure to stir the hearts of young and old alike."

All of it's true, too.

Dozens of horse-drawn vintage wagons, vintage costumes, scores of riders on horseback, cowboys and bands will make their way through Ketchum. The crowning moment of this festive annual parade that draws thousands along Ketchum's main streets will be the thrilling sight of the six enormous Lewis Fast Freight wagons pulled by a team of 20 mules. The ore wagons date from the rough-and-tumble 1880s mining boom that brought civilization to the Wood River Valley.

Wagon Days isn't just happenstance. Hundreds of volunteer parade participants, as well as an anonymous army of backstage planners and workers, are at work on Wagon Days in one way or another for months each year, planning an even better parade than the previous year.

They deserve every cheer, and all the applause that rises from crowds that watch this gala event that has grown from a struggling idea into a widely known and celebrated show of Western history.

In these sober times of a national hurricane disaster and a war in Iraq that increasingly touches more American families, the Wagon Days parade provides an uplifting break from the daily assault of grim news.

The chance for the young to break away from the high-tech doodads and electric gadgetry that are inescapable in their lives and catch a glimpse of the role wagons ands horses played in the building of their country is a contribution to their learning they'll not find anywhere else.




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