Monday, June 19, 2006

Riverfront Days--Decatur Nebraska


On Saturday we attended a parade in a neighboring town. Decatur is on the Missouri River and is on the North end of our county. They have a two day celebration each year and a parade on Saturday. They wanted the County Supervisors to judge this parade. It was fun but much more difficult than I had expected. Judging a parade, regardless of the size, should be avoided. I did notice that even though the parade route is only about 5 blocks long, it takes most of an hour to go by. There is a limited amount of kids along the route and an unlimited amount of candy being slung from the floats. The result is children with plastic grocery sacks bulging to the point of bursting, the streets paved with unwanted candy, (if you can be picky, you don't bother to pick up hard candy or those miniature Tootsie Rolls) and kids staring at the next float wondering what they might throw that could possibly be worth bending over to retrieve.
The picture was taken from the Ferris Wheel (sp) and shows the entire midway. Grandma got to go with our Grandon to take this. This may look like a tiny midway to you but if you have a Grandson in tow, it"s quite big enough. The part of mainstreet that is past the carnival is where the parade had been.
The river bottom land is about 7 miles from Tekamah, but is disappears at Decatur. The famous Dryland Bridge is at Decatur. The bridge was completed on dry land and the river was to be redirected under it. They ran short on funding for moving the river so the bridge sat over dry land for a few years until Federal funding was available. This happened in the 1950's. I was about 4 or 5 when the bridge finally opened.

15 comments:

1 plus twins said...

so what float won??? my kids love those parades, we have candy for months and months. totally funny about the hard candy (which is always broke) and the tootsie rolls (millions and millions of those)

Anonymous said...

The "dry land bridge" was quite the attraction. I have pictures of me, my Dad & some of my friends on the bridge. We drove over there on my birthday. Quite the excitement!
Small town living.
Phyllis

Jim said...

Nice reporting, Cliff.
I know you are/were a fair, honest, and objective judge. We all think the best float in each catagory got your vote.
Decator has three or four restaurants, a gas station, a fire station, a school, ...
I have only eaten at Pop's Dock for fried river fish. Is it still open?
..

Cliff said...

Jim, Pop N Docs is still open and I think they have the best fish and chips going.
Thanks Phyllis for the comment and reading the blog.

EV said...

They picked the right man, OK! That "dry bridge" tale is a classic.

PinkCat said...

Sounds like a great event better then our measley Peacehaven Carnival they used to have when I was growing up. I was once on a float dressed as a character from Oliver Twist. LOL

Rachel said...

Such fun Cliff. I'm sure you were a great judge. I used to belong to the Saddle Club and we had a float and it was lots of fun doing it and seeing all our hard work in the float!! We usually placed at least.

Did you get to ride the Ferris wheel too? I haven't rode one of those in years and don't know if I'd want to now or not (depending on high it went!).

Cliff said...

Rachel, I don't think I'd pass the 'You must be this narrow to ride this ride' test.

Raggedy said...

Hugsssssssssss

Peter said...

Sounds like our kind of town Cliff, not much "Big Smoke" about Decatur.

Ralph said...

Cliff
I was a judge in a fair once - it is a lot harder than it seems. Okay, I'm read to go back to Pop N Docs. Jim will meet us there.
Ralph

Anonymous said...

Cliff,
I know that you were a fair and impartial judge. With that much free candy lying around, there's no way that anyone could bribe you with sweets.

That's funny about the Dryland Bridge.

Jamie Dawn said...

Judging would be hard. I'm sure the whole event was fun, though.
I love ferris wheels! I like the view from up there.

Kendra Lynn said...

That looks like alot of fun. :)

LZ Blogger said...

Great perspective form the ferris whheel. Looks like a fun time! Not sure where Decatur is though. ~ jb///