Holiday cart parade

The low humming of a golf cart gets louder and the colored lights glow brighter as yet another senior citizen's yearly entry into the festival of lights takes a lap around the park. Most of the passengers have a drink in hand as they sing along with the Christmas songs of long ago blaring on a portable radio attached by bungee-cords

It’s a yearly tradition that grows or shrinks in number depending on how many passed on before the parade and how many new residents came to live here. Alot goes into the decorations on the carts each unique in its own way. One old guy hung empty liquor bottles entirely around the top of his cart with a spotlight shining on them while “I DRINK ALONE” blasted from a boom box.

I get a front-row seat every year for this little parade and it never disappoints. Last year I escaped injury when a senior lady took too long a swig from her tall drink and missed hitting me by inches. She did take out a couple of my plants before getting back on course laughing all the way.

A few of the drivers decided that they would tie their carts together and string lights completely around all the carts. It looked nice standing still but, when they all took off in different directions, it became a tangled mess of carts and lights. How nobody gets hurt in this holiday demolition derby is beyond me.

As I sit and wave as they pass by, I can't help but think how these older folks must be having the time of their now mostly quiet lives. The smiles on their faces and joy in their voices must somehow transform them to the days long past when feeling young came with no effort, unlike the present when for at least one night under the glow of colored lights they are once again just a bunch of kids having fun

Each year I tell myself next year I'll enter the parade but I'll have to get a cart and convince myself that I'm through riding motorcycles. I don’t know which one is more dangerous, or fun. Time will tell.


www.facebook.com/mikeoconnor-author

www.michaeloconnorwriter.com