The Blue Ribbon Parade

When I was in Grammar School, the Blue Ribbon Parade was the most important thing in my life, however, there were way too many rules associated with it. For instance, each student had to complete a form starting the first day of school and running all the way to May, when the event was held.

Every school in the city and the county was involved in it, and each teacher kept a scorecard on every student.

Here are just a few things that we were graded on daily:

1. Eat at least three leafy vegetables. (It didn’t tell you how much.)


2. Drink at least three glasses of milk. (It didn’t tell you what size.)


3. Eat some kind of meat. (Did the pork in pork and beans count?)


4. Drink two quarts of water. (How are you going to tell when you are drinking out of a water fountain?)


5. Eat two kinds of fruit. (I guess you could qualify if you ate a grape and a watermelon.)


6. Eat oatmeal for breakfast. (You mean every day from the first of September until the last of May. That’s crazy!


7. Brush your teeth after each meal. (You would have to be the biggest sissy in the world to bring a toothbrush to school.)


8. Go to the dentist prior to the parade. (I had rather slide down a thorn tree with a wildcat under each arm than have to go to the dentist.)

Now, you need to remember one thing. This was right in the middle of the great depression, and some of these things were hard to come by. About the only thing I could afford was the water and brushing my teeth. If you were overweight, you had to loose some. Nearly everyone was under weight, and that didn’t seem to matter. The worst thing was going to Dr. Rosalee Carter, the dentist. She would say, “Here comes the airplane”, and then grind down into a nerve.

When it was finally decided who would be in the Blue Ribbon Parade, I became a little suspicious, because every student in both the city and the county was selected.

The boys had to wear a white shirt and white trousers and the girls had to wear white dresses. (Slacks had not been invented then, and I think there should be a public flogging for the person or persons that invented them. I think that “Rosy the Riveter” was the guilty party.)The parade lined up at the Franklin Elementary School and marched down Main Street, around the Square and back up Main Street.

All the merchants, parents, and grandparents lined the sidewalks three to four deep. There were lots of long speeches made and nearly all the stores were closed with the exception of Grey Drug Store, White’s Drug Store and The Corner Drug Store, and the reason they stayed open was because there was a sign in each drug store window stating “Show your blue ribbon and get a free ice cream cone after the parade.”

When I stopped by Grey’s, (I did stop by the other two also) to get my ice cream cone, I looked and Fred Buford was standing in line with a homemade blue ribbon fastened on to his shirt with a close-pin, waiting for his cone of cream. He must have been forty years old at the time. I asked him “Freddie, what are you doing in line? He said, I’m a salesman.” I asked him what he was selling and he gave me one of his homemade business cards, which said:

Fred A Buford
Dr. Peterson’s Pep-o Pills
For puny people with petered out personalities