Silver Bells in the City

Kathy is decked out in her white quilted parka. Around her neck is a neckles of flashing minature christmas tree lights. I am in my dark green MSU sweatshirt with an overlaying red vest. Festively attired, we head to Clara's for dinner prior to the Silver Bells in the City Electric Light Parade in downtown Lansing. Clara's roof lines are strung with white lights. There is a warm glow inside the old Lansing Train Station.

After dinner, Kathy and I walk to the corner of Washington Street and Michigan Avenue, joining the 30 people deep thong lining Washington Street. First come the Lansing Police Department Motorcycle mounted police, sirens bleeping, and red and blue lights flashing. The first float for this years electic lights parade, aply enough is the International Brotherhood of Electirical Workers local 665 wearing outer teeshirts claiming "We Build Lansing". Their float is covered with lights, and animals and people, and... Next comes the Eastern High School Marching Bank drum beat, whistle, raising of instruments into a round of Frosty the Snowman, followed by more electric light bedecked floats: the Humane Society, Salvation Army, Potter Park Zoo, People's Church, Lion's International Air Force fighting the War on Blindness: Diabetes, Glaucoma. The United State Army has a light covered HumVee with a sign: "Peace on Earth". The United States Marine League Capital Detachment, a lighted "deuce and a quarter" truck with a sign " If you can read this, thank a teacher." The MSU Rodeo Club galloped down the roadway followed by Sparty in the MSU Recycle truck's forward bin "Keep MSU Green". The final float was from Peacock's U Cut It Tree Farm, a train engine, covered train cars with people waving from the windows, a flat car with Santa in Red Suit and white beard, and a caboose with Miss Lansing and Miss Michigan spotlighted and waving. There were 60 floats in all; a dozen marching bands; 100,000 people lining Washington Street, and Capital Avenue.

The temperature was 37 degrees F; the sky overcast. As the last float came by, the crowd moved from Washington Street, West towards the Capitol Building, Capital Avenue, and the Douglas Fir tree, brought down from the Upper Peninsula, near Gladwin MI. When we got to Capital Avenue, we caught the tail end of the parade: The Holt High School Marching Band, Peacock's Train and the follow up Motorcycle Mounted Police. A few speaches from visiting dignataries, the lighting of the Christmas Tree on the lawn of the State Capitol followed by a burst of fireworks highlighting the State Capitol building.

Lansing, platted in 1847 and in April of that year, designated by the State legislature as the Capital of Michigan. 160 years later, Lansing hosting "Silver Bells in the City."