Step One: Coffee. Step Two: Tobacco. Step Three: Hold the Board.

DO NOT STEAL THIS ART IDEA! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!

 Why don't they ever have wrestling as a theme?  I want to wear a mask like this on the next float.  Oh well.  Here's Danny's trailer that burned down, taking Suzie's family photos with it.  Just context for the last post's photos of her salvaging what she could.

It's good to have a saw like this lying around when you're fashioning your own new hitch to your old trailer.

Here's the second trailer (the "car" in our parlance) before the bed was laid on it.

 And here's the first trailer (the "engine").

The finished car trailer.

I'm not the only jackass working on this project.

Breaking for lunch, I saw another brother, Don, and a sister, Colleen.

Danny made me buy everyone's lunch.  Typical.

I got really excited when I saw a tree that kicked off these red berries, but Doyt warned that they aren't edible and thus aren't considered Valley produce, unless you would like to produce death.

Planning made huge steps forward when Doyt's grandson, Judd, finally decided we ought to have a plan.  He and I took out some paper and began and in short order had a schematic for the boiler, complete with dimensions.

And a schematic for the engine.  Danny was worried that if I post this on the blog someone is gonna steal our ideas and build a better float than we will.  Judd and I considered this for about two seconds and decided if they can make something out of these drawings they're welcome to them.  On the other hand, I made a point of not publishing our last, state of the art, drawings with the secret bells and whistles.  Ha!

Here's the rough schematic for the car.  Modeled loosely after a coal car, it will have room (4 feet) for a band and a giant area for grapefruit above, where the coal would be.  Again, we have secret stuff we're not including in this drawing, so if you steal it, you'll still make an inferior float.  You've been warned.

There's gonna be room for 8-10 people on the float, all in.  This year, I think we should all wear thematic costumes.  But that's secret too.

Baby Steps

 Danny, Doyt and Judd spent the day finishing out the trailer.  The day I spent lawyering, they spent welding.  They flipped the skid pads on the bottom to make the whole trailer higher and figured out how to bring the tongue down so it will still fit onto a truck, even though it's higher.  They also painted the heavy iron frame a bright aluminum.  Supposedly they also changed the tires, but the new ones -- if they are new, and Danny wasn't just lying -- look about as safe as the old ones which had been rotting in Doyt's pasture for the last who knows how long. 

Yesterday, then, they attached 8 foot long supports across it and finally laid 3/4 inch plywood down to make the floor.

 While we were doing this, Suzie was trying to save photos from her family albums, which burned up in the trailer fire a little more than a month ago.  The albums were all singed, burned or water damaged. 

 I didn't do much with the trailer renovations, but I did find and claim a very stylish pair of gloves in a crate in the shop (there were about 200+ pair of new gloves in the crate). 

 By the time I got a decent pair of gloves selected, the trailer was pretty much done.

 Doyt tested it out for stability.

 I actually did do a few things while they were getting the trailer ready.  First, I went by the Citrus Fiesta office to see if we can have a two-part trailer.  The answer is yes, as long as the total is less than 40 feet.  So if we use this new trailer and a 9 footer that Doyt has, we can make it.  We will return the big trailer we used last year to the VFW hall. 

While I was at the Citrus Fiesta office, I mentioned the photos taken last year by the crowd.  I (or rather, my sister Martha and her daughter Erin) handed out 100 disposable cameras on the day of the parade and told people to take photos of anything they like.  We asked them to return the cameras and, shockingly, 63 people did.  Each camera took 27 photos, but not all of them came out.  So there are far in excess of 1,000 4x6 parade photos taken by residents of Mission.  Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if they were shown during this year's Citrus Fiesta?  Nope.  No room, says the CF office.  Try the Mission Historical Museum.  Since it is just across the street, I went over and talked to a nice guy named Vernon, who is the Archivist and Curator.  He liked the idea but says they're booked this year.  Maybe next year?  He was also interested in the larger documentary project about Mission I've been doing.  I told him about it, showed him the book I've been working on, and he seemed pretty interested in that.  As he paged through the book, I warned him there was some home-made, found, anonymous porn from the good citizens of Mission towards the back.  You could almost feel the book burn Vernon's hands.  He dropped it and gingerly picked it back up, flipped through a few pages to be polite, and sent me on my way.  I did tell him that I had no intention of showing any porn in Mission, and he seemed to like the fact that we could agree on something.

SO, I wandered by the Upper Valley Art League, which was closed.  But an artist and teacher named Gloria let me in and we chatted about the parade photos.  She said the idea sounded great and that they might be able to do something in February.  I'm going back today to meet with the executive director and a couple of board members.  Here's their website:  http://uval.us/  And here's some of the work in their last members show.

I also went by Home Depo for some 20 foot 2x4s but they were out.  Special order item.  Takes 3 days.  Danny and Doyt just used some 14 footers instead.

Oh, and the best part:  as a result of this blog, my friend, Dan Patchin, found out I was looking for a certain train photo -- we both remembered it, but we couldn't find it anywhere -- to use as the model for our float.  Here it is, courtesy of Dan and the SMU photo archive:

A little closer on the rebels:

I sent the photo to the pinata shop and told them to make four pinatas, exactly like these, but that we would put different faces on them.  There are four bandits and four McClain brothers, so I asked my brothers to send me photos to use.  Here's what my brother Chris sent:

So by the end of the day, we had laid the floor to the trailer and painted it with a first coat of paint.  Dinner time rolled around and Danny, Suzie and I went to El Patio for some culture and delicious cuisine.

 Who can say what will happen next (other than this lady anyway).