My Most Embarrassing Parade Moment AKA When The Lights Went Out

It happens to everyone, when there's one small detail of a project that gets overlooked. That moment when hindsight says 'DOH! I should've double-checked!' This is what happened to me many years ago in Bangor.

I thought that I had everything covered for the station's float in Bangor's Festival of Lights parade. We had an awesome theme - 'Leroy the Redneck Reindeer.' We had a reindeer costume! And we had a basic layout for the donated flatbed.

Brave volunteers joined me that sunny-but-cold Saturday morning to dress the float. We had gathered a truly ugly orange rocker/recliner for Leroy to sit in. (I remember that chair well because my son took it home and put it in his room) A small television with an antenna sat in front of the chair on an old-fashioned TV tray. We had a bag of pork rinds for Leroy to pretend to munch and scattered a few around on the floor of the truck.

At the other end of the float was a brown and white plaid couch. The plan was for one of our part-time announcers to lay on the couch, with a handmade afghan over his legs. I stood behind it, leaning against the couch, waving a people.

We had purchased several strings of white Christmas lights that encircled the float, to light everything up. It was the only illumination we had. The lights were going to be powered by a small generator that was provided, graciously, by one of our part-timers. That was his whole job. (this is where I really wish I'd double-checked)

The parade stepped off and we were all feeling amazing! The float looked great and we just knew that all our listeners would get the theme immediately. Our truck made its way through the Kenduskeag Plaza parking lot, up the access road to Exchange Street, turned the corner onto Exchange....people started to cheer and clap....and the lights went OUT!

I mean, dark. Completely. It wasn't like one string of lights failed, but we still had all the others. No. The person in charge of the generator had forgotten to fill it with gas. And we're in the midst of a parade, so it's not like we could run to the gas station to get more. Nope, we were stuck, riding out a whole procession through Downtown Bangor, in the dark.

What did we do? What could we do? We made the best of it. As people called up to us, 'Where are your lights?' we called back...'Leroy forgot to pay the Hydro!' Everyone laughed and applauded, despite the fact that they couldn't really see us. And, honestly, that was probably a blessing, because they couldn't tell that our faces were as red as Rudolph's nose!