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75 °F Forecast | Road Cams Saturday, August 28, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Prime Times Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend July 5, 2004 With her beehive hairdo just making it inside the car, Laura Quick of Central Point smiles as she drives her pink Cadillac in the Central Point Independence Day parade. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Central Point ... Parades Fourth Music, bright costumes in the staging area give a sense of things to come By SANNE SPECHT Mail Tribune The staging area for the Central Point Independence Day parade is full of noise and color. Bagpipes and banjos clash chords as green tractors and pink cadillacs line up for their Sunday morning march down Pine Street. While some members of the Southern Oregon Scottish Bagpipe Band are still adjusting their kilts in the Central High School parking lot, others are giving their bagpipes a final tune-up. Like an orchestra tuning up in the pit, the pipers stand on the pavement practicing different songs in different tempos. Discordant stains of "Scotland the Brave" and "Green Hills of Tyrol" swirl out into the warm morning sunshine. "Sounds like someone set a bunch of geese loose around here," jokes one man, an admitted bagpipe music lover. Pipe Major Roland Kari says his band consists of six pipers and five drummers. Playing festivals and parades since 1931, the band will celebrate its 75th anniversary in two years. Advertisement Kari joined the band 20 years ago after learning how to play the bagpipes. "It’s like any other instrument," he says. "If you can walk, talk, chew gum, rub your stomach and mop the floors at the same time, you can play the bagpipe." Down the street a bit, the Rogue Country Jammers fiddle and strum on a hay stage laid out on a large flatbed truck. Band members Sheri West and Don Maddix will be playing at the Children’s Music Festival at the Britt Festivals next weekend. Carol Anderson is sporting a belt with 2-inch silver letters proudly proclaiming "Fiddlesticks" in the back. She says the eclectic group of bluegrass, country and country swing musicians meets from 7 to 10 p.m. Mondays in Gold Hill at the I.O.O.F. Hall, and Tuesdays at the Rogue River Community Center. "It’s a free jam," she says, plugging for membership. "All are welcome!" Ahead of the country jammers, the Central Point Tractor Club is chugging along. Daryl Kinsman, whose hobby is renovating tractors, brought one of his 31 tractors to the parade. His 1940 McCormick Deering tractor is still in "as-is" condition. "I bought it when Reter Orchards shut down four years ago," says Kinsman. "This one was the ugliest one that still ran." Dick Perry has been coming to the parade with his 1946 John Deere tractor for 10 years. "When the parade was 10 minutes long, we were here. Now that it’s an hour and a half, we’re still here," he says. Perry’s group is antsy to get this party on the road. They have another parade in Eagle Point at 1 p.m., if they can get there in time. But the Central Point parade is growing. This year, 60 entrants are lining up. The tractor crew isn’t the only group eager to get going. Some parade contestants are literally champing at their bits. The equestrian units are dressed in their finest tack. Dancing and prancing, the horses are doing more than stamping their feet to show their displeasure — and that’s where Brenda McClure and Josh Cole come in. The mother and son team have been doing cleanup for the sheriff’s posse for 10 years. Cole, 17, says he started his career in poop scoopin’ with a wheelbarrow and "graduated to a tractor" a couple years ago. McClure, 43, says she couldn’t stand not being a part of the action even if her son didn’t need help driving. Dressed in a black-and-white clown outfit with a foot-tall flag hat and foot-wide pink sunglasses, McClure gives kids a painted-on happy face to wave to while she wields the shovel in this duo. "It’s going to get pretty full," she says, eyeing the tractor’s small bed and anticipating the horses’ output. A prettier parader, in both sight and smell, came in the form of the bodaciously bee-hived Laura Quick and her pink cadillac. Sticking her 17-inch "Autumn Sunrise" peach hairdo out the window of her 1961 Fontana-Rose colored cadillac, Quick cheekily smiles over her diamond-studded cat’s eye glasses, and waves a white-gloved hand at the crowd. Quick says she is the third Rogue Valley owner of the caddy, which came with the original owner’s manual still in the glove box. Quick says she loves to parade her car, but she was missing her partner. Her state trooper husband usually comes along dressed as Elvis, she says. But she was driving solo today because he was home snoozing. Quick stresses her hubby is only tired, not ducking the chance for another public appearance. In fact, he was "in" from the minute she spotted the car and said "This is it!", she says. "He said he was man enough to drive a pink cadillac," she says. The call to final assembly comes a few minutes after 10 a.m. The parade is finally beginning. As the floats, boats, cars and trucks full of candy-tossing paraders stream by, the waiting crowds wave and cheer. And in the distance, a sound comes swirling on the wind. As the sounds grow closer, the song becomes familiar, "Scotland The Brave". The bagpipe band — perfectly in step and in tune. Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 776-4497 or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities