[color=green][b][u]Leo's Parade Diaries: Lucky Green[/u][/b][/color] ------------ Snare Soldier speaking. Although my signature color is orange, it is a fact that many of us Drumbums, G-52s and allies, and other musicians on the musical payroll system have multiple uniforms for multiple occasions. Today is St. Patrick's Day, so naturally, everybody was wearing green today. It was a Sunday today, so we waited until the afternoon to have our parade so that all churchgoers could go to church. Then, after confirming that the weather was nice and sunny, but not too hot, we began to march. The parade was a lot smaller than the last one, which broke the already amazing record for biggest number of marchers marching in a parade, but the point of that one was that we were celebrating our triumphs over CNG and the stupid double standards it attempted to enforce. This parade was just celebrating St. Patrick's Day. (The parade also took a side route to allow traffic on the main streets to flow freer, but it still took place for the most part in Wonder Park.) St. Patrick's Day is a public holiday celebrated in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (for provincial government employees), and the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated here in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, especially amongst Irish diaspora. The holiday has been criticized for fostering negative stereotypes of Irish people and commercializing it to the point of encouraging people getting drunk, something St. Patrick himself would be rolling in his grave for, for his real purpose was ministering to his people and reaching them for the Lord. (This is why I sometimes hear about how Patrick visited Ireland and purified it of snakes.) Legends also credit Patrick with teaching the Irish about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a three-leafed plant, using it to illustrate the teachings about three persons in one God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost if you prefer). Three was a powerful and significant number to the Irish in those days, especially among pagans, and Patrick was ministering to those very people. The way we acknowledged it in our parade was playing slow marches that were appropriate, and by "slow march," I am referring to a song that is actually played in 3/4 time, and the soldiers take a step on beat one of measure. ------------- Due to his duties as President, Leo the Patriotic Lion and his administration were sadly not able to make it to Wildcat City this year, but because the primary color of the U.S. Lion Corps Band (and all units thereof), the band did play appropriate music for the occasion, with Leo conducting. While he and his successor, MSG Lionel Davies (the Lion of Liberty), considered themselves to be semi-retired given their other jobs they've had over the years in order to allow other lions to serve as head drum major and assistant drum major, it was often said, "Once a member, always a member." Thus, both lions returned every so often to lead parades or conduct in public settings, and here, Leo was conducting the bands. (Lionel played his own military field drum. He had recently retired from his job as a music professor at WU due to various changes, but he said those changes were for the better once he observed them, and that many faculty still call him for advice once in a while. Now he just performs on the payroll full time, with occasional YouTube tutorials.) ------------ This is Wildcat City, and so no one was getting drunk, I should point out. We did, however, put emphasis on the color green, with the marching bands all wearing green, even though the animals continued to habitually march barefoot. Several human actors dressed as leprechauns danced around with the Irish flag to add to the festivities, and the music we chose was Irish in nature, even though we still played American music here and there. The canon characters of "Cripto's army" were also given special attention, since we marched in this parade as an assignment for the payroll. It began, however, with the most natural choice: Leo the Tiger and his three marching bands, who wear green uniforms to begin with, although they also have white uniforms they use for wintertime performances. (The white uniforms Leo's troops wear differs from the one he wears as the Marching Wonder.) Then we had all the Drumbums performing, and we always march in this order to represent the order in which new animals were added to our numbers: -------- 1. Rat 2. Lion 3. White lion 4. Orange tiger 5. White tiger 6. Misc. tigers 7. Dingo 8. English bulldog 9. American bulldog 10. French bulldog 11. Red fox 12. Gray fox 13. Fennec fox 14. Gray wolf 15. Timberwolf 16. Red wolf 17. Grizzly bear 18. Black bear 19. Polar bear 20. Misc. bears 21. Cheetah 22. Coyote 23. Otter 24. Bull 25. Bison 26. Raccoon 27. Mouse 28. Dhole 29. Jackal 30. Miscellaneous dog breeds (performing as one large mix, not including the breeds listed below) 31. Miscellanoues cat breeds (performing as one large mix) 32. Puma (a.k.a. mountain lion, catamount, or cougar) 33. Border collie 34. Golden retriever 35. Black labrador 36. Chocolate labrador 37. Yellow labrador 38. Rabbit 39. Gorilla 40. Orangutan 41. Misc. apes (excluding monkeys; we haven't found any of those yet) 42. Crocodile 43. Alligator 44. Reindeer 45. Ram 46. Dragon 47. Minotaur 48. Wildcat 49. Kangaroo 50. Hyena 51. Beaver 52. Liger 53. Badger 54. Goat 55. Bighorn sheep 56. Leopard 57. Jaguar 58. Panther (black leopard) ------------ There is the possibility we may add unicorns to our lineup as well, but we'll be talking about that in a different journal entry. ----------- The way we gave the canon characters of "Cripto's army" special attention was having them march in a space all to themselves, but still playing with the bands. For example, Tony the Tiger was marching with his own military field drum, even though he was just marching as his naked self with the ascot to help the crowds identify him. He wore a sparkly green top hat, however, to show he was acknowledging the holiday. The place he stood in when we lined up attention was an equal amount of space between the Drumbum Lions and the Drumbum Tigers. The D.A.R.E. mascot, Daren the Lion, stood in front of the Drumbum Lions for the same reasons, althoughe he was beating a bass drum. He had a green uniform on, though, shako included, and on the shako was the traditional harp symbol. The SWAT Kats, however, just marched with the other felines that made up "Konway's Korps." -------- Marching in front of the Drumbum Dragons was the Warfang Pride Band; this is Spyro the Dragon and company, with the Chronicler acting as drum major. Spyro was skilled at both percussion and brass, but he played the trumpet so that Terrador could show his militaristic discipline with the military field drum, while Malefor provided foundations with the bass drum. Gnasty Gnorc, Spyro's longtime enemy, illustrated his rehabilitation from crimes and repenting of his sins by crashing the cymbals. ------- The parade went around the various parts of Wonder Park, starting and ending at Marching Greens, although when we got back to Marching Greens, we didn't do a field show. We just found places to place ourselves when it was time to halt. When we did halt, the drums kept beating so the drum majors could march to their places, and then conduct the last batch of songs. We officially concluded with the Irish and American national anthems, leading to the special effects of launching gold coins in the air from a pot of gold, following confetti. The pot of gold coins was implied to be magical, with never-ending treasure, although all the coins that shot out were American one dollar coins with the Presidents on them (including Leo). The public made sure to behave themselves and spread the wealth around, but the children had such fun gathering up the coins, and the parents encouraged them to put the money in the bank and let it grow interest. (Some kids were allowed to spend them, and so one six-year-old boy, for example, bought a board game themed around the PAW Patrol.) ---------- After a lunch break, we took a few minutes to rest, but we soon were spending the day recording any other payroll assignments that we had to do, although we still wore our green uniforms while doing so. It was a rare case of me playing the drum set while in uniform, because the music consisted of my fellow rats using their modern marching percussion ("football drums" as we like to call them) to go with my drumming on the drum set. ----------- Altogether, we had a wonderful time making music together, and the luck of the Irish was certainly with us on this day. I hope it was with you as well. See you later. ----------- [color=gold][b]THE END[/b][/color]