For over 30 years now, Gonzales has hosted the "Come and
Take It" parade through the streets of this wonderfully historic city. This
was about my 3rd or 4th time for this event, and I can assure you - I'll
keep coming back.The club was expecting a good-sized turnout for this
event and some basic plans were made. Whoever from Austin interested in
attending would meet at Kaiserville, aka: Danny's place and we would leave
at 6:30am from there and convoy on down the 60 miles or so. Well, about
6am, I arrived and my dad was already there. We wandered around back and
Danny was helping Fred get his jeep on Herb's trailer. When that was
completed, up pulls Toby and his friend Ray. We downed some hot coffee, and
one of the TAVV guys showed up so we were ready to roll.
An hour later, we all arrived after an uneventful trip. So far, we had
Danny with his M151A2/M416 combination, me and dad with our M38A1, Fred and
his CJ Navy jeep, Toby and Ray with Toby's MB and the TAVV. Then, Madison
arrived with his wife and grand-daughter along with his M37, Chuck and
Connie show up with the MB from San Antonio and finally JD and his dad with
their MB. What a group! I had heard grumblings of people being hungry, so I
trotted off (actually drove) to the Whatburger only a quarter-mile away and
picked up 10 breakfast taco to go. When I got back to the parking lot, we
fired up and headed to the staging area hauling the TAVV guys who had also
arrived.
We located our staging spot and parked. Then waited. And waited. And
waited. Hurry up and wait. That's the drill. That's OK, we feasted on the
breakfast tacos so none of the troops would starve. About 9:30, the judges
started making their rounds so I just had to 'sell' the club to each of
them. Danny remarked on how well I can 'market' our club too.
At 10:30, the parade started. This is what's called a 'reverse-order'
parade, and a mighty fine concept at that. The first vehicle in the parade
is actually the last one in line. The second vehicle in the parade is next
to last etc. This way, each of the participants gets to drive by those
entries to see the parade and once you're started, you get to drive by those
still waiting to roll-out.
We meandered out of the staging area for several blocks and saw some
terrific entries. At the beginning of town where the parade started and the
awards are given out, one of the judges ran over to the Danny's lead vehicle
and presented our group with 3rd Place for Group Participation. As the
parade meandered through town, the crowds were evident on this wonderful
day. Lots of smiling faces, clapping and the occasional standing ovation.
As the parade meandered through town, the crowds were ever present
throughout the entire parade route. In fact, there's a better showing of
spectators here than the Veterans day parade up Congress Ave in Austin. We
were #72 and it took us right at one hour to finish. With 131 entries, that
would be about a two hour parade for the spectators.
When we arrived back at the loading area, we all secured our vehicles in
short order. In no time, most of us had decided that lunch was the next
order of business and we decided on Kreitz's Market BBQ in Lockhart.
However, Chuck and Connie had to head back to San Antonio as did JD and his
dad back to Corpus.
For those of us who continued on to Lockhart, we were treated to some
pretty good bbq. Then, Madison and company show up after we thought they
were going to stay in Gonzales for the festivities. Everyone stuffed
themselves to maximum capacity and it was time to roll on home.
Overall, an excellent parade. My hat is off to the organizers of this
event and look for us next year!