Just another parade

My town has been doing a St. Patrick's parade for a few years now. We don't exactly got a large population of Irish. I think I know a handful of directly Irish in town. Most of us are indirectly Irish in some way. According to my family tree, I've got a great grandmother who has Irish ancestry and perhaps a great great grandmother too.  Many just become a wee bit Irish to join in the libations.
On to the parade. I took a few pictures. Unfortunately the best part of the parade happens in the first 5 minutes- with the historical reenactors, bagpipes, and the marching firemen in full dress. I missed that all because of a train. I couldn't cross into downtown until it passed.
The rest of the parade is a bit ho-hum. Just people wearing green and occasionally throwing sweets with a few mascots thrown in for good measure. The man who usually jigged the entire route in a green tux passed away last year. It appeared his entire family came en-mass to walk or ride in the parade.
My chief criticism is the lack of creativity this parade could have. It is getting a bit better but the lack of music (barring all the recorded stuff every unit seems to play) could really be improved. Besides the bag-piping      group there was only one group doing live music at the very tail of the parade.
All in all, this even gets people downtown, which is probably sort of the point of the thing.
My sister down in the TCs is part of the group that organizes the St. Paul St. Patrick's Day Parade. Their parade is much larger and actually has some of the same things as the one up here, which surprised me, but I should have known- I remember going to that parade as a child. Looking at their lineup I only see one musically unit- the bagpipers. So maybe I am asking too much of a St. Patrick's Day Parade. I do have a bias towards marching music.

Slan.