Different Strokes for Different Folks
“Gawd, this is embarrassing. This is Faggot’s Day. And they do it on Father’s Day. I’m a dad. Why do they have to do it on Father’s Day?”
He’s referring to today’s Gay Pride Parade, and auxiliary run-abouts around town. The answer to this stranger’s question is, I suppose, it fits into the Gay Agenda’s (or, wait. I’m sorry. “Faggot Agenda”) plot to secure special rights and flout their immoral lifestyle choice in front of all of decent red-blooded Americans like himself.
Portland is degenerating into a wild array of special interest tribes. If today is — um, in the phrase of the man I lead with “Faggot’s Day” — last week was “Suburbanite Week” in Portland, otherwise known as “Rose Festival”. I did a double take when I saw the front-page headline for the Portland Tribune, and laughed reading a news article probing the question But in between the time Portlanders are children and have their own families, the Rose Festival loses them. The organizers’ own research has shown that between the ages of 18 and 34, most people have something better to do.
I try to divert my eyes at this time. Some Suburban family marks a space on the sidewalk with duct tape for prime seating space for some parade or other, a parade replete with marching bands and the finalists for some high school “queen” of some sort or other. Some rides show up on Waterfront Park, and I hear you can buy some cotton candy therein. In theory this festival has started to lose money in recent years, and thus that’s why the Portland Tribune implores why the Yute of Portland are not showing up for the festivities. But itt’s probably worth the loss, in that it boosts Portland’s Brand Image. To ask why I’m not taking part in any of this is silly and absurd. It reminds me of skipping out on high school pep rallies, which occasionally received a scornful “Why are these students walking away from our pep rallies?” from school officials and semi-officials, and I’m guessing Portland’s 18 to 34 set is full of people who in high school skipped out on pep rallies. (Also hilarious is this letter to the editor decrying the Rose Festival’s growing “commercialism”.)
But there is a tip for future marketers: The pirate ship that docked in Portland was used in the creation of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. It was also used as the backdrop of a recent porn movie. A tour of the ship that points out key plot points of both movies might get a slice of that 18 to 34 demographic — I don’t know if it’s the slice you are hankering for, but take it for what it’s worth. At any rate, it’s an opportunity lost.
Speaking of Pirates, yesterday was Pirate Day. Portland, Oregon was overrun with Pirates. Portland’s Infernal Order of Pirates had a Plunderathon, an annual event I believe. And thus there wre Pirates. I don’t know what to say about that.
I guess more seriously tied to anything is that there’s the Juneteenth festival in North Portland. I walked by that fenced in area, never walking through it, unsure as to what it was. I congratulate Ron Saxton on his efforts to greet potential voters at… Juneteenth.
Though the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect on January 1, 1863, it had little immediate effect on most slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in Texas, which was almost entirely under Confederate control. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce slaves’ new freedoms. Standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read the contents of “General Order No. 3”:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
That day has since become known as Juneteenth, a name derived from a portmanteau of the words June and nineteenth.
Slaves in Galveston rejoiced in the streets with jubilant celebrations. Juneteenth celebrations began in Texas the following year. Across many parts of Texas, freed slaves pooled their funds to purchase land specifically for their communities’ increasingly large Juneteenth gatherings — including Houston’s Emancipation Park, Mexia’s Booker T. Washington Park, and Emancipation Park in Austin. Within a few years, these celebrations had spread to other states and become an annual tradition. Celebrations often opened with praying and religious ceremonies, and included a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. A wide range of festivities entertained participants, from music and dancing to contests of physical strength and intellect. Baseball and other popular American games were played. Food was central to the celebrations, and barbecued meats were especially popular.
So, with Pirates, Gay parades, and a celebration of the end of slavery abounding — not to mention Father’s Day — off the heels of a festival for our Suburban breathern — there’s plenty worth noting. None of too much interest to the man I mentioned at the top here, but I can probably find a Klan rally for him to sit in on.