Riding your bike in the Scandinavian Days Parade in Story City, Iowa is a pretty big deal for a kid.

After years of sitting on the curb, getting candy thrown to us as we watched all the fancy cars, marching bands, horses and people dressed up in Norwegian clothes, being a part of the parade is a big deal.

It is like being on stage instead of being in the audience.

I remember back in the early 1970’s, my mom and I decorating my bike hours before the parade. I remember loving the pinwheels on my handle bars as I rode my bike up to  the parade starting point at the grain elevator.

This was my new bike. I had gotten it for my birthday just a few months before this picture.

I quickly learned that riding a bike in a parade is much different than riding your bike to the store or to the park. Riding a bike in a parade is a mission of controlled balance at a VERY slow pace. Riding in a group of other kids required a new skill set.

I was working on my core muscles before I even knew core muscles existed.

I discovered I had to keep a certain space between my bike and the person in front of me and beside me. And I had to cope with the lack of coordination some other riders exhibited, using strategies that I had to make up on the fly.

And I couldn’t really look around to see who was looking at me from the curb. Taking my eye off of the girl’s bike in front of me could be a disaster. I had to keep track of her pace and the person in front of her and constantly recalibrate my velocity and side-to-side balance ratio.

I didn’t have time to look around. I had a mission: To look good on my bike and not crash into the bike in front of me.

It was no small order.

I have such fond memories of Scandinavian Days.

For a kid, it was magical. The parade! Snow cones! Floppy! Corn dogs! Ring toss!

Our little town got turned into a carnival for a weekend. Strangers came in to set up rides. They always seemed like gypsies to me, traveling from one town to the next, creating adventure for a boy like me.

I would wake up so early on Saturday morning knowing I had a full day of fun and true adventure in front of me.

This morning, little kids will be lining up for their first parade adventures. They are taping paper mache and pinwheels onto their handle bars as I write this.

I wish them all the fun they can possibly have! I wish I were there to cheer them on!

Riding your bike in the Story City Scandinavian Days Parade is a big deal!

If only Floppy were still around…