Photo of the Chelsea Fair Kids Parade Now: 23 August 2011

The long-running much-beloved hyphenatedly-described Chelsea Community Fair is the officially unofficially official end of summer in Chelsea. It always opens during the day on Tuesday, but it doesn’t truly open until early evening, when the kids parade arrives at the fairgrounds after winding its way through the side streets of Chelsea.

The parade is led by the previous year’s fair queen.

Trailing the previous year’s queen and this year’s candidates is the middle school band.

After the band came the flood of kids. Seriously, it was a flood of kids. There were a lot of kids in the parade.

I can’t tell if he was happy to see me and waving to the camera or if he was saying “Oh, go fly a kite” and waving me away. I’m pretty sure it was the former, but…well, kids these days, right? Get off my lawn and all. (For the record: he was happily waving.)

They should make an adult version of that bike. We old folks like fun things, too!

The stream of kids seemed practically endless. That was partly because there were a lot of kids in the parade and mostly because there were even more mosquitoes out for dinner than there were kids in the parade.

I’ve long felt Barbie made it difficult for the average child to relate to her, what with her Cadillac SUV and her big dream house and whatnot. Shouldn’t there be a Studio Apartment Barbie who lives in an okay-but-not-luxurious apartment building and drives a 1998 Ford Escort with 190,000 miles on it? The whole world isn’t pink and rich, Barbie.

That child’s identity has been hidden to protect the innocent. Wait, what? You’re not buying that? Okay, fine. I didn’t notice until later that I’d timed the shot all wrong and obscured his face. But I’m including this photo to remind you that Cloudy With A Chance For Meatballs is one of the greatest kids books ever written, and that you should never ever mention the atrocity that was that awful movie by the same title. I prefer to believe the movie never existed. The book is fantastic, people. Stick with the book. Do it for the children. (Because, you know, it’s a kids book.)

When the parade arrived at the fairgrounds, there were more activities for the kids. One such activity was the trike pull.

This was just a fun not-for-competitive-profit activity, but the fair does have a competitive trike pull. I didn’t photograph it this year, so you’ll just have to show up to next year’s fair to watch it.

Stay tuned for more fair photos!