little ragamuffins

We had planned to go to a farmhouse apple festival today, but rain in the forecast put a damper on that idea -- literally. That left us with Activity Option #2: stay in the neighborhood and watch the Ragamuffin Parade. The organizers of that event are apparently not the type to let a little drizzle deter them, so after lunch we donned our shoes, grabbed our umbrellas, and walked to the corner to have some good old fashioned fun.



The Ragamuffin Parade is a children's event which has been an annual neighborhood tradition for the last 42 years. Basically, it's a chance for the local kiddies to march through the streets showing off their Halloween costumes. Anyone who wants to can join in (thus leading to far more participants than spectators). We realized almost too late that the parade was happening, and so didn't have enough time to put Garrett in his costume before we made our mad dash out the door, arriving just in the nick of time to see the start of the parade pass by our apartment. Otherwise, I think we would have joined the ranks of participants. As it was, though, the parade needed more spectating support, and Garrett loved watching, so we're not too sad we missed marching. Next year, though.



Highlights included:

• Approximately five thousand little boys dressed up as Spiderman (complete with foam --err, I mean washboard abs);
• A brother-sister pair as Raggedy Ann and Andy;
• Another brother-sister pair: a toddler dressed as a monkey and his infant sibling dressed as a banana;
• The Headless Horseman -- well-done and very creepy;
• A toddler-sized R2D2 which even rolled around on wheels (with the aid of his parents);
• A little boy wearing a green shirt, green pants, with a string of fake leaves wrapped around him going as the Green Giant;
• Four teenage girlfriends dressed as the Deal or No Deal models. They all wore matching red dresses and carried numbered aluminum foil-covered boxes as their cases;
• A pint-sized British golfer, complete with teeny tiny golf clubs;
  
• And, though they weren't necessarily in Halloween costumes, we loved that the high school marching band played "Eye of the Tiger." Seemed rather fitting in Brooklyn, we thought.

But the Award for Best Costume has to go to the little girl, maybe four or five years old, dressed in a business suit, sharp glasses, and with her hair done up, dressed as a pint-sized Sarah Palin, with her mom, wearing a hockey shirt and a sign that said "Hockey Moms for Sarah Palin!" walking alongside her. Oh, how I wished I'd snapped a photo!

Yay! A parade!