We Love A Parade… Usually

“What’s it for?” I asked the small boy standing next to me.

He turned to me, shrugged, and turned away, chomping his gum. I shrugged as well, and turned back to watch the spectacle.

Our first night after moving into the flat was interrupted early the next morning by a throbbing timpani. A precise swirl of silvery piccolo notes, a piercing whistle, and a clash of cymbals followed. Charmed, we stumbled out of bed and into the entry hall, where we cracked open the door to the outside world. Despite the drizzling rain and gusts of wind, there was a parade going by. We thought, from the many people wearing black, the lack of smiles, and the many women wearing large hats, that it was a parade for a policeman’s funeral, and quietly crept away indoors. It seemed unseemly to do more than stand hidden and watch, as many other along the street seemed to be doing, from behind “net” (we’d say sheer) curtains.

This morning, we were both just being quiet, when the thumping of the kettle drum finally drifted into our brains. “Another parade!” exclaimed T., and the resident photographer was up and finding his shoes in a moment. T. took a little longer, as she felt the need to peer critically into a mirror and wonder if she should try to find a hat, but in the end, she simply ran outside as well, and leaned on the gate.

Not even her small fellow observer knew why people were marching. She was bemused, watching the procession of stern faces, none wearing tartan, nor kilts, and none playing pipes. Further down the block, D. was trying to keep his hair from blowing into each shot as a capricious wind had kicked up. He was also wondering why there were so many people looking at him. Looking. Really looking. Some hard, direct gazes, which he caught on film.

What D. couldn’t see was that he was getting looks behind him, as well. As he happily snapped photographs, every policeman who walked by was taking note of him, and looking back. Some of the other parade people were looking back, too. Half a block away, this drew T’s attention. And then, she saw the orange.

“Drat,” she muttered, as the line after line of according playing marchers came into sight. Protestants. Marching down the road. With tons and tons and tons of yellow-vested police. It explained why few people were watching the parade openly, the lines of young toughs running alongside the parade in packs, and rowdy groups of overexcited kids, and the phalanxes of uniformed policemen. They were waiting for a conflict. They were expecting a fight.

T., in her bright orange fake Crocs, looked down uneasily. It was probably silly, as her shoes were more neon orange than anything, but she decided not to wear them elsewhere other than her own front stoop. She didn’t want to have to discuss the parade with someone when she knew nothing about it.

Finally, the last police van passed. The little boys — two by now — made an abrupt and silent about face, and walked back to their flat next door. D. came with the key, and the Hobbits went back to their cave.

“Did they tell you what it was for?” T. asked D. as he locked the outer door. “What?” he asked.

It’s commemorating the Battle of Orange… fourteen hundred and something,” a neighbor called down the hall.

“Oh?” T. responded, hoping for more.

“They should let it go. Racist bastards,” he shrugged, and smiled. Startled, we laughed, and he went on down the hall.

It is indeed the commemoration of a battle which polarizes some Scottish and Irish persons. Some people celebrate that the Battle of Boyne was the victory of a Protestant king over a Catholic one. Others, who are celebrating a battle marked on the Gregorian calendar as July 1, use the day to celebrate a run up to a decisive July 12, 1690 battle (and incidentally, that is the same day, just a different calendar); it was a victory of the English over the Irish and Scottish, when King James VII of Scotland / James II of England and Ireland (same guy, different titles) and his Jacobite supporters were defeated by James’ nephew and son-in-law, William III. For those revelers, it’s about the unity of the United Kingdom, and the triumph of the English. Modern historians insist there is no sectarian, no Protestant v. Catholic part of this history, and wish people would instead recall that this was about the Jacobite attempt to put a Stuart back on the English throne. Three hundred years ago.

American Civil and Revolutionary war reenactments. Mock battles staged on ground soaked in ancient blood. History is like a rabid porcupine that we love to clutch tighter and tighter to our chests, fighting to hold onto it although it pierces us and we bleed. Some march to keep alive a dispute that is years old, and others shake their heads, grim.

Since we were out of the house, we wandered to The Mitchell, and remarked to a worker that the rousing drumming had at least gotten us up and moving for the day. D. told her he’d gotten some pictures of the parade. “Aye, I know,” the woman sighed, shaking her head. “Isn’t that a shame?”

– D & T

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