Independence Exercised: Columbus Doo Dah Parade, July 4 2006 (Part 1)

For 23 years now, residents of the Short North area of Columbus where I live have unfurled their freak for the annual Independence Day Doo Dah Parade (rain date: July 3). Besides a sketched-out route, there was not (and apparently never is) a plan for the parade. With no entrance fee, no registration, and no requirements (except that participating politicians must at least wear a funny hat), people are free to show up with whatever they have in mind and get their march on. That’s not your traditional “Fourth of July” parade, in which the pros and people with position get to march in registered and rehearsed rank and file, while the rest of us sit and cheer. The Doo Dah (which apparently occurs in some other cities as well) is an alternative with real freedom, in which anyone who wishes can be a parader, anybody can say and do just about anything within the constraints of the law, and the only thing keeping the rest of us on the sidewalk is our own choice. Basically, the Doo Dah is a Kiddie Parade like many of us had when we were kids, except that the grown-ups get to hop in too, with adult sensibilities in decoration and demonstration. It’s raggedy, it’s uneven, it’s hodge-podge, but it’s definitely not canned. With apologies to the young anarchists, this is what democracy looks like.

As the parade time of 1 pm approached, I bopped down the street with my son to the corner of 2nd and Hunter avenues, grabbed some prime sitting space on the curb, and watched it all go by, not knowing exactly what would come next. The photos below are a sampling of what I saw in the first half of the parade; look for photos from the second half tomorrow.

After residents and visitors from the ‘burbs settled in for a nice watch, a nice doggy started off the parade, trotting right along down the center of the street at the head of it all.

A woman dressed as Lady Liberty was the human head of the procession, with her daughter (shall we call her Libertina?) in accompaniment.

Mean? What does this mean? It just is.

Is wearing a flag skirt a desecrating act? How about flag briefs? I don’t think so in this case: note the “support” hose.

The Marching Fidels are apparently a mainstay.

The satirical Border Patrol float was cute and fun. Accompanied by whistling guards and barking Homeland Security commands over a megaphone, the Border Patrol vehicle offered free rides to “Detainees” (read: the kids), who then got to run through a little hole in the border fence, with guards engaged in a hijinky sort of Keystone Kops chase the whole while.

Um… Wilma from Daily Kos? At least she was tossing out candy.

The parade was just getting started at this point. Look for more Doo Dah documentation tomorrow.