Dog Tales: William Goes to the Parade

Forgive the cuteness. This post is being told in William's "voice." 

The human said there would be no bagpipes, so I agreed to go to the parade this morning. We got to our spot on Warren Street a little early, so I lay down on this cool stone I know about (I mean cool literally) and waited for the parade to start.  

I waited . . . 


and I waited.


These guys were waiting, too.

Finally, I heard the parade coming. There were drums, but none of those bagpipes that hurt my ears.


As the parade approached, the human and I zipped across the street, where I could stand in the shade of a tree and the human could take these pictures.

After we'd watched for a while, a man who was marching (the human told me later it was Doc Donahue, an alderman from the Fifth Ward) invited us to join the parade, and we did! I think I was the only dog in the parade. We marched down Warren Street for a little bit. Then we turned by the church and went to the courthouse. (The human told someone later that she didn't know if we were a one-person contingent of Common Council alumni or the self-proclaimed Dog Mayor of Hudson and his human escort/adviser.) 

When we got to the courthouse, I was tuckered, so I collapsed on the grass. (What do you expect? I'm fourteen and a half. That's more than a hundred in human years.) The lawn was luxurious. I was lying in clover! Normally the human never lets me set paw on that grass. She's always reading me a sign that, according to her, says, "No Dogs on Lawn."


I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention to the speeches. In spite of the fact that the human is pretending that I'm writing this post, I don't know more than a hundred words, so speeches are pretty much lost on me. But the humans were listening, and they kept applauding, so it all must have been good. 

Through the whole ceremony, I didn't fidget and I didn't bark and I didn't bolt when they shot off the guns, even though I didn't like that part very much. Why they shoot off guns to honor people who were killed by guns doesn't make sense to me, but what do I know? I'm just a dog.