One of the other great traditions of the Chelsea Fair is the fair parade. It seems to be longer than it was when I was a kid, but that just means it involves even more candy, so kids (and dentists) still enjoy it.

The parade marshal was the very cheerful owner of a local barbershop:

I’m pretty sure Gary doesn’t wear the old-timey barber gear on a normal workday, but his barbershop is wonderfully small-town and old-school.
As usual, the CHS marching band wasn’t playing when it marched past me:



A local church put its worship band on a wagon and entertained the crowd along Main Street:

The Lions — not the Detroit Lions — brought their disease-fighting air force:

The Beach Middle School band actually did play while they walked past me!


The fair parade is a happy time for everybody. Don’t believe me? Take a look:


If that’s not happy, I don’t know what happy is.


The 2011 Fair Queen was in attendance:

The CHS cheerleaders cheered for the crowd:

The Chelsea House Orchestra got out of the house and turned into the Chelsea Parade Orchestra for the afternoon:

Eventually, everybody’s favorite fair parade feature rolled by: the Jiffy Mixes truck!

The Jiffy truck is accompanied by friendly locals handing out free (FREE!) boxes of Jiffy Mixes:

Back when I was growing up, there was nobody handing out boxes. Instead, the truck driver threw them out his window. The newer method means a lot more people get boxes, but…well, I do miss the old method just a little bit.
The Jiffy Mixes folks did introduce something — or rather, someone — new this year:

That’s Corny, the new Jiffy Mixes mascot. The character was created when the company produced a new video to accompany its factory tour, and it proved popular enough to prompt a real-life Corny costume.
Finally, scattered throughout the fair parade are a bunch of demolition derby cars. The winners — not just the overall winners, but also the individual heat winners — get to ride in the parade with their thoroughly trashed but still victorious cars.
Remember the library-sponsored derby car?

Yes, that’s driver Kim Potocki on the library car. She drove the extraordinarily well-read car to a heat victory on Wednesday.