Old Business

Oh, yes. The Chinese New Year’s Parade. Well, that like to have killed me.

In the first place, they almost doubled the length this year. It started around Main and whatever-that-street-is-just-north-of-Temple, worked it’s way around to Broadway and went all the way down Broadway almost to St. Peter’s Italian Church, crossed up to Hill and all the way back down Hill toward the pointy building where the mayor works (who was there but got to ride in a car). That’s not ideal but it’s usually not too much trouble. Except that a couple of weeks ago I pulled a muscle in my chest, an “intercostal” something or other. This mostly doesn’t bother me. Unless, of course, I do a lot of striking-in of a bagpipe and then it starts to hurt a lot. Parades with a pipe band involve a lot of that. The products of America’s fine pharmaceutical industry do much to allay that, but eventually they wear off.

So if you were there and you heard unsteady blowing and noticed one piper looking particularly grumpy, well, you now know what I look like.