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10 SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | FEBRUARY 2019 By Kim Walker If you are born in Pasadena, California, it's expected, almost as a rite of passage, that sometime in your childhood you help decorate a Tournament of Roses Parade float. My Girl Scout troop did that. Fast forward about 40 years and I got involved with the floats again. Thanks to my best friends who joined Phoenix Decorating in the 1980s, I was invited to join them in 1991. At first my role was just to hang out with them all night. Then my role evolved. First I was a float observer. Most people don't realize that the float driver can't see where he/she is going at all. There is a pink line painted down the center of Colorado Boulevard that keeps the driver centered on the street, but otherwise, he's blind to where he is going. The observer is in the front of the float, peeking through a tiny opening in the flowers, and communicating with the driver through headphones. My keen observer talents allowed the Big Ten float to run over the Penn State Nitney Lion mascot in the middle of the street the year the school played the Oregon Ducks in the Rose Bowl. I lived in Oregon at the time. The story made front page news in Oregon. Then I became an animator. That's the person who rides inside the float to control the music and any moving parts. That's probably the most stressful job. It is not a comfortable ride for one thing. You are basically sitting on plywood surrounded by chicken wire for about five hours. With no bathroom. And it's critical to have everything working properly when you round the corner onto Colorado Boulevard. in front of the TV cameras. If the float is over height, the float has to collapse before the bridge on Sierra Madre Boulevard. I was the animator for the Budweiser Clydesdales float for five years. I actually got to ride one of the horses before the parade started one morning. Now I am support for the float drivers who stay out on Orange Grove Boulevard with their floats all night. I ride around in a mule taking them breakfast and making sure the float is operational before the parade starts. People always ask how long it takes to build one of the floats. After the parade and the 24 hour public display is over, the floats are driven back to the barn. The crew takes a two week vacation and the process starts all over again. I keep asking myself how long I will be able to stay up all night. So far its just way too much fun to give up. The Pasadena Tradition

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