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Thread: Chino Hills Boat Parade

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    We made it to the Chino Hills Boat Parade this year. It's actually pretty cool. It could only happen in Chino Hills though.
    Copyright Press Enterprise Dec 24, 2006
    Chino Hills is landlocked.
    It has no harbor, no beaches and no rivers, no navigable waterways at all. The closest thing to a lake, the residents call it Lake Los Serranos, is a golf course pond where it would be difficult to park a boat, let alone sail one.
    So, naturally, Chino Hills has a boat parade.
    In fact, the annual Chino Hills Christmas Boat Parade has evolved from a protest 15 years ago that one of its organizers says was intended to "thumb our noses" at the town establishment into a signature community event.
    Thousands line the city streets, peer out from windows and gather on second-floor balconies on two nights the week before Christmas to watch processions of sail and motor boats mounted on trailers and decorated with lights and trees. Santa Claus gives his reindeer the night off in favor of having his sleigh towed by a Hummer.
    Tim Neel, the 48-year-old Los Angeles police officer who helped found the event, says people ask him all the time why have a boat parade on dry land.
    "We wanted to make something so farcical that it would be unique," he said.
    Curt Hagman gets the honor of driving the only non-boat in the parade because, as the mayor pro tem, he coordinates the parade for the sponsoring Kiwanis Club of Chino Hills and he owns a Hummer capable of pulling the sleigh.
    He agrees with Neel that the parade is part spoof - sort of Chino Hills' answer to the Pasadena Doo-Dah Parade - but it also has a heart-warming side. He made that point as youngsters braved a 39-degree chill, some adorned in pajamas and bath robes, to see the parade Friday night. They waited until after 10 p.m., in some cases, as 20 boat floats wound through narrow streets of the Los Serranos neighborhood.
    A couple of days earlier, talking on his cell phone over the noisy revelry at the city's annual Christmas party, Hagman addressed one of the most common questions he must field: how did this thing get started?
    "It started out as a protest over the city's incorporation," he said. "That was back in December of 1991."
    Neel later picked up the story.
    He and two of his neighbors, Oric Johnson and Keith Amling, were sitting under a neighborhood olive tree lamenting their failure to convince fellow residents to vote against incorporation.
    "We were happy with the status quo," he said. "We thought that it would be less expensive" to remain unincorporated under San Bernardino County control.
    "We didn't think it was necessary to rock the boat," he said, erupting in laughter as he realized the unintended play on words.
    What happened was more free association than planning.
    He looked at the boat parked in the driveway across the street and then at the makeshift volleyball net he had fashioned for his kids out of two poles set in concrete balls. Christmas was coming.
    The next thing he knew, Neel and his buddies were hoisting one pole into the back of a pickup and the other into the boat and stringing Christmas lights between the two. Neel installed a generator and his home stereo in the pickup and broke out his Christmas music - carols sung by the Chipmunks - that was to become a staple of the parade.
    They fashioned a Santa suit out of Johnson's red jumpsuit, spreading glue on the sleeves and sticking on cotton balls. A bent coat hanger with more cotton attached became the beard.
    "We wanted to hand out candy canes," Neel said. "There was only one store out here at the time, so went into Chino and hit all the stores, and bought out all the candy canes."
    They hung a sign on the side of the pickup calling their protest the "First Annual Official Chino Hills Christmas Boat Parade." The word official was included to try to fool authorities who might want to shut them down.
    Santa rode in a truck behind the boat and they headed out on a five-night excursion through town, honking horns and playing the music as loud as they could to get people's attention.
    It worked, Neel said. Especially when they turned down a cul-de-sac by mistake and made their turn-around in front of Jim Thalman's house. There arose such a clatter that he came out to find out what was the matter.
    "We told him it was the official boat parade," Neel said. "He said, `That's funny because I'm the new mayor and I've never heard of it.'
    "We copped out to him that it was just a spoof and we were having a good time," Neel said. "People came out with hot tamales and stuff and gave it to us. We told him we sure hoped the parade wouldn't be shut down because it seems like a lot of fun. He says, `Not as long as I'm mayor, it won't be.'"
    By the third day, a second boater asked to join the parade. By the fourth day, there were four.
    On Saturday night, the second day of this year's parade, at least 60 boats were expected to parade through downtown Chino Hills. So many that Hagman fears he may one day have to limit the numbers.
    As it is, a trailer follows the parade carrying two portable toilets for the participants. Even those have been decorated some years as gingerbread houses.
    And the protesters?
    All is forgiven, says Neel.
    "I have even worked on some of their council campaigns. I think the incorporation turned out to be a good thing."
    "It shows me how much a community really appreciates something," he said. "Even though it started out as a spoof and we were thumbing our noses at the city. All in all, we went from rebels without a cause to being a part of the establishment."
    [Illustration]
    PHOTOS; Caption: MARK ZALESKI/THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE / (1) Jason Heil, of Chino Hills, stands by his boat at the staging area behind the Heartland Furniture Store before the start of the Christmas boat parade in Chino Hills on Friday. (2) Shawn Johnson attaches the final lights on his boat before the start of the Christmas boat parade in Chino Hills on Friday.
    Credit: THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE

  2. #2
    Senior Member
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    Friggin' Chino......

  3. #3
    Miss Managed Assets
    Friggin' Chino......
    :wink:

  4. #4
    Bre
    I sat in my dads neighborhood Friday night to watch the small one... then Saturday night we watched the big one from the back porch of my brothers Pick Up Stix store... kids love it.. I have lived here since I was 2.. so I have watched it since it first started.

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