I’ve got to hand it to Gilroy
– we attended the very sweet Memorial Day parade and felt all
the requisite emotions of warmth about living in a town small
enough that I saw friends watching the parade and marching in
it.
I’ve got to hand it to Gilroy – we attended the very sweet Memorial Day parade and felt all the requisite emotions of warmth about living in a town small enough that I saw friends watching the parade and marching in it.
But (and as P90X knows, it’s a very big but) there were a few things I think could be improved.
Like, for one, letting people know about it.
Through a listserv I belong to, I learned that there were a profusion of activities at Christmas Hill Park following the parade. I never would have known otherwise.
Gilroyan Christine Maxwell, who sent that email through the listserv, wrote, “I wrote an email to the city complaining about their web site … There was nothing on www.gilroycommunity.org that was helpful in planning what to do/where to go on Monday. No parade route, nothing about the remembrance ceremony, nothing about what happens after the parade, are there potties, dogs allowed, etc. … urrg. So late tonight, a nice lady (Christy Bracco) sent me all the good info. Here it is for your pleasure.”
And so that’s how I learned about jump houses, rock walls, helicopters, skydivers, face painters, balloon artists, Home Depot building kits, Lowe’s building kits, Army dog tags, kid safety kits, live music and more.
Of course, the very paper you are now holding (or viewing online) was a source of information for much of this, albeit not in so detailed a way. And although I checked the gilroydispatch.com website for the parade route, I was unable to find it. I used to live where parades took left turns and right turns, and it was important to know where to park your lawn chairs, but long-time Gilroyans know the route is straight and doesn’t waver.
Or do they? Deanna Matto has lived in Gilroy 12 years and not only didn’t know the route, but literally didn’t know there was a parade.
So why wasn’t all that included on the website? I, too, had looked at it to see what the parade route was; it wasn’t listed. It’s like the city either doesn’t want anyone to attend the events, or assumes that everyone knows everything already!
I think it’s a case of the latter. I remember when I signed up a child for a parks and rec class, I had the hardest time figuring out where it was taking place. The seemingly-extensive brochure of classes and activities, which even had a map of the parks, did not show where in the park the class was to take place. So I had to leave a half-hour early to give us time to troll through the park and figure out where it was. I had the feeling that the person who designed the recreation guide had lived in Gilroy all their life and didn’t count on any newcomers. But I digress.
Serena Chapman, who has lived in Gilroy for two years, and before that in Hollister for six, literally also had no idea that Gilroy had a Memorial Day parade. “It is not listed in the recreation guide that is mailed out to the residents of Gilroy,” she said.
Another person told me, “The flyer we received in the mail could easily have included location info, but it didn’t – instead it directed you to the website, which had even less info on it than the flyer. Seems like a pretty big oversight.”
This was my point a few columns ago about Gilroy Gardens: you can create the most wonderful event or destination, but if it’s not well-advertised you miss out on reaching those you want to attend.
But while most people I talked to just wanted to know about the parade (birthday idea: give friends a subscription to the Dispatch!), remembrance ceremony and activities at Christmas Hill Park, one person wanted the parade itself to be improved.
She said, “My kids enjoyed the parade and that was mainly because I bought them an ice cream and the Sheriff gave them candy. I, on the other hand, was extremely disappointed … Everyone who sat past the high school did not get to experience any sort of parade, but rather tired people who’d been waiting a long time and had an even longer walk. There are very young kids to older people participating. Has anyone ever thought that it’s a LONG walk for everyone involved?
“If that wasn’t bad enough,” she continued, “There were times were we waited five, 10 and almost 15 minutes for more of the parade to come by. With two small kids, it was hard to keep their attention. The City of Gilroy needs a better-organized event to honor our soldiers. They have to shorten the parade route and not have as many cars in the parade – it’s not a car show or is it?”
Personally, having previously lived in a city that had Macy’s-style balloons and some eye-popping floats, I didn’t mind the scaled-down nature of the parade. I’ll trade the absence of parking meters for a hovering, inflated Mickey Mouse any day. But I do take her point – a shorter, faster route should be easy to organize. And next time, Elvis, please sing!
