by Beth Hermes

Created on: January 17, 2010

New Yorkers are a crazy lot – I among them – rising in the pre-dawn hours of Thanksgiving Day, leaving a warm bed and the delicious smells of roasting bird and baking pies to stand for hours in the bitter cold to witness the elaborate floats, balloon wranglers, marching bands and celebrities, in what is likely the biggest and most beloved advertising campaign of all time.

Dad was the stage manager for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for several years back in the '70s, so my brother and I had our television debuts in costume. Most years we were clowns, waking before the sunrise in our hotel room to make our way to the upper-floor warehouse rooms of Macy's-Herald Square where we would receive our costumes and apply our makeup.

We were excited the year we rode on the float. Dressed as pilgrims, we sat on bales of hay surrounding a giant turkey, upon whose back sat the diminutive Mickey Rooney. Of course, atop the great bird with flapping wings and eyes that blinked in a moving head, Mister Rooney looked positively huge!

Our float was more than halfway through the lineup – closer to the Rockettes and Santa Claus than to celebrities like ShaNaNa, Gil Gerard and, my favorite, Rex Smith, who was appearing that year in The Pirates of Penzance. But I recognized Mister Rooney's face from Disney movies (although it had aged somewhat) and his voice as that of Santa Claus in the Christmas specials on television, so I was excited about my role as a pilgrim girl.

We smiled and waved to the crowd as the float rolled down Broadway. Mister Rooney was a good sport from his fowl perch, waving and smiling right along with us.

Of course, we had watched him perform his song the night before, and we anticipated the brief stop before our on-camera appearance at 34th Street. I was lucky – my bale of hay was right in front of the camera, and when the float rolled into place and the music started playing, we pilgrims were all cued to stand and wave enthusiastically. (After a few hours of hand-waving, it was quite the effort, but we were on camera, so wave enthusiastically, we did!)

So enamored with the camera was I, thinking of Grandma and Aunt Ruthie and my cousins watching back home where we would have our feast later in the day, that I missed the cue for all pilgrims to sit back down and hang on tight. The turkey lurched forward and I landed on my rear next to my bale of hay!

Later, at Aunt Ruthie's, I found that they had watched for us on the turkey float. “Yes, Bethyl, we saw you!” my cousins exclaimed.

They tactfully left off the part about witnessing my graceful exit.

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