Heading to Dick's on Saturday, I came to the six-way intersection where NW Radial meets up with Maple and Military at 60th Street. Rolling up to the stoplight, I nearly didn't notice the fact that the intersection was taped off with "Police Line DO NOT CROSS" tape. I distinctly remember thinking, Wow, did somebody get shot? Because its not every day you see dead bodies on the pavement.
While these thoughts raced through my mind, the light turned green. I skirted around the tape and jogged a half-block south, as this street was not blocked off. It was at this point that I came upon a marching band, in the street, right in front of me. With cheerleaders wearing bunny ears leading the way. I knew I hadn't won the lottery -- although someone in my hometown did win $200 million over the weekend, buying the ticket at a Kum&Go I used to frequent damn near every day in high school -- so what was the deal?
Benson Days. This was the parade for Benson Days. And I was seemingly now smack dab in the middle of it.
Momentarily, I entertained thoughts of playing along with it, even going so far as to grab my bag of mints from the armrest cubby so I could throw out the individually-wrapped mint candies to anyone who might be watching the parade. But then it occurred to me that this had to be the most sparsely attended parade in the history of parades, at least since that time they threw a "I'm the Richest Guy In The Universe" parade for Ronald Camp.
This was just the warmup/queue street adjacent to the parade. Realizing this, I turned around quickly and got outta there. The problem still remained that the street I needed to be on was closed, and probably for many blocks. How to get across that street to Dick's? Thank goodness for the GPS Navigation System in my car. I navigated a path through the heart of North Omaha -- 60th to Ames, Ames to 30th, 30th to Hamilton, Hamilton across Saddle Creek. Good times, rolling through North O with the Alternative Rock station on XM (or as its called down there, "White Boy Music"), windows down and sunroof open. I wish I'd had my iPod so I could have played some Vanilla Ice. Alas.
Good times. You bet.
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