Jeff Khouw and his son, Andy, along with the family dog, Tucker. Tucker is a boxer-lab mix, Jeff said. But he added, "At least we know the boxer part." Not sure about the labrador part. Quite a few canines joined in the marching.
Ace Flyer Elias McCoy, 2 1/2 years old, in his Sopwith Camel, created by his "honorary grandma" Tammy Hawkins. "No instructions — I just did it," she said.
The Sopwith Camel seen from behind. The broomstick pushes and steers it. Elias' mother, Andrea McCoy said family friend Tammy Hawkins enjoys putting together things like that. After her son had mentioned his fascination with garbage trucks, she said, "Last night there was a giant cardboard garbage truck on the porch that she just whipped up because she had some time."
After renting a costume for the first two years, Joe Warren of Darien got a call from an organizer of the event asking him for his measurements — they were buying him a costume. How does he clean it? "I take it to the cleaners. Let them worry about it."
Rob Fenge made this tank for his kids, Oliver, 4 (on the left) and Jasper, 6, posing here with VFW members before the parade. Fenge made it and spray-painted it yesterday.
Singers with "Mary Ann Hall's Music for Children" (find out more at MusicForChildrenCT.com). "We've been teaching here for 30 years," Hall said. From left: Mary Ann Hall, Emily Hall, Lindsay Ogilvy and (on the truck), Bill Hall.
Hundreds of kids with their parents, friends and relatives pedaled, pulled, pushed, perambulated or otherwise pressed forward at Darien’s 11th annual Push-n-Pull Parade on Saturday morning, taking some small steps in patriotism.
Perhaps 400 kids and adults were decked out in all sorts of red, white and blue clothes, hats and decorations. Their vehicles — bicycles, scooters and wagons (the rules are that nothing is motorized except the fire trucks) — sported bunting and ribbons, flags and any other frill that could be found to celebrate the day.
Darien’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6933, which this year took over the organizing of the event after its 2005 founder, the YWCA of Darien/Norwalk bowed out, marched at the head of the parade. Fire trucks rolled before and after the hundreds of marchers.
At the Goodwives Shopping Center parking lot, where the marchers assembled, patriotic and fun songs were performed by Music for Children.
The parade pulled out of Goodwives at 10:37 a.m. onto Old Kings Highway North, rolled past the United Congregational Church, then turned onto the Post Road and headed downtown.
Just before the railroad bridge downtown, the parade turned right onto West Avenue and into Tilley Pond Park, where bikes were parked, food tents and trucks were available and face painting was free. A band played for kids, and if the day wasn’t quite sunny, it might as well have been.
Among the decorated bicycles and wagons there were a few vehicles that stood out (you can see the pictures in the attached photo gallery).
Vera Monan, age 3 1/2, became fascinated with space shuttles on a trip to the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, so her father, Peter, made her a space shuttle that fits around her waist. She used it for trick-or-treating on Halloween (there’s even a compartment for candy in the front).
Monan said he made it by scaling up instructions he found online for a model for a small paper version.
Elias McCoy, 2 1/2, rode the parade in a wooden model of a World War I biplane made for him by Tammy Hawkins, a friend of his family who has a knack for making that kind of thing.
Two boys, Oliver, age 4, and Jasper, age 6, rolled through town in a wagon transformed into a cardboard tank by their father, Rob. He finished off the camouflaged vehicle just that morning, he said.
“He got the idea from the Internet,” said his wife, Jennifer.
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