CHRISTMAS, 2000
Well, it's been a very
busy week up here on the lake. The
whole lake community has been preparing
for the annual Lights on the Lake Tour
and Boat Parade.
About 15 years ago,
a local contingent of fishermen went on
a deep sea fishing trip to Fort Lauderdale
over the Christmas holidays. While
they were there, they watched the Christmas
boat parade that they have down there (they
decorate their boats in Christmas lights
and displays, and drive them up and down
the Inter-coastal Waterway). Not
to be outdone by Fort Lauderdale, the fishermen
decided right then and there that they
should have a similar parade on Oneida
Lake. The only problem with this
idea (and there seem to be problems with
a lot of ideas that surface around Oneida
Lake) is how do you have a boat parade
on a lake that is frozen over? Several
suggestions were offered, some of which
included dynamiting the ice to break it
up (a particular favorite of Stinky Williams),
or getting one of the Coast Guard Ice Breakers
to come down from Lake Ontario and break
up the ice. After much debate and
discussion (and a couple cases of Molson's),
it was decided that they would forget about
having the parade on the lake, but instead
would decorate the boats, put them on trailers
and haul them through town and around the
lake.
The idea seemed to
go over pretty well within the lake community,
but those who didn't own a boat wanted
to get in on the fun also, so a yard-decorating
contest was added to the boat parade. So
now, every year, The Great Oneida Lake
Lights on the Lake Tour and Boat Parade
occurs on the first Saturday night in December,
after which a big party and concert is
held in town.
All agreed that this
year's tour and concert was going to be
the best yet. Harry Cannook, Jr. was going
to be the Grand Marshal for the parade. He
was to be joined by his band, the Imperial
Canadians, for the concert afterwards. People
all over town were working hard on their
displays for the tour. Clancy McBeth over
at the Lakeside Funeral Parlor and Crematorium
was excited because he got to use the Mail
Sled that he had recovered from the lake
in his display (minus the skeleton of course). It
consisted of the mail sled ringed in lights
with a big sheet of plywood painted white
to resemble a letter with the address "Santa
Clause, The North Pole". Pete Sokal
put a large Christmas tree in front of
the Bait-N-Brew all decorated with lights,
along with several small statues of fish,
dressed in elf costumes, dancing around
the Christmas tree. Flo and Eddie,
over at the Eat-A-Lot Diner, obtained a "Santa
in Sleigh with Reindeer" display from The
Home & Tractor Store and four large
fish windsocks from the indoor flea market,
which they stuffed with newspapers and
rags. They removed the reindeer from
the Santa display, so on top of the Eat-A-Lot
Diner is Santa in his sleigh pulled by
four large fish. Over at the Catholic Church,
Father Migliori put out his usual display
in front of the parish hall: life-size
replicas of the three wise men following
the Christmas Star.
He had affixed the
star to the roof of the parish hall. Problem was,
that at night someone kept sneaking in
and putting fishing poles in the hands
of the wise men. After removing three
different sets of fishing poles from the
wise-men display, Father Migliori finally
gave up and left them with the poles in
their hands. So now, instead of it
looking like three wise men following a
star, it looks more like three men in robes
going fishing. Father Migliori decided
that he would join in the joke too and
put a Santa hat and beard on the carp he
had caught last summer, which was now hanging
in the Parish hall.
Boat preparations were
also going along well. Stinky Williams
was decorating his boat to look like
what Stinky envisioned blowing up the lake
ice with dynamite might look like. Tommy
Migliori had arranged for several young
women from the Five and Dime Bar to be
dressed in mini-skirted Santa costumes
on his boat, and they were going to hand
out free cans of Labatt's beer. Robin
Starling, from Fantasy Florist's, had covered
his boat completely with Poinsettias. Robin
had also installed a new sound system on
his boat, complete with loudspeakers, so
that he could play Christmas songs sung
by Bette Midler during the parade.
Everyone was excited
and could hardly wait for Saturday--everyone,
that is, except for old Ladd. Old
Ladd has a farm that sits right at the
end of Toad Harbor Road on the lakeshore. He
is locally known as quite an old grouch. It's
been a bad year for old Ladd. Besides sinking
his boat off Poddygut Shoal (which blocked
the entrance to the main channel through
town for a couple of days), there was the
broken tractor on Main Street incident
(which tied up all the traffic in town
for a day), and the manure spreader incident
(which stunk up the whole town for a day). Needless
to say the people in town were not happy
with him and he was not happy with the
people in town. All of his neighbors
had been asking him what he was going to
do for a Christmas display this year but
his response was either a grunt or a sneer.
The week before the
parade a new display appeared on the roof
of old Ladd's barn, in four foot letters,
visible over the whole lake. Lined
in lights, flashing on and off were the
words "BAH, HUMBUG". This really
upset everybody. Tommy Migliori tried
to shoot out the lights on old Ladd's display,
but Sheriff Wysocki stopped him. He
didn't want Tommy hitting any of the houses
behind old Ladd's place. The Christian
Ladies' Fellowship petitioned the mayor
to have old Ladd's power shut off, but
the mayor said that would be illegal under
state law. Finally, it was decided
that they would just ignore old Ladd's "Bah
Humbug". The rest of the town would enjoy
the parade anyway.
In spite of old Ladd's
sign, the tour and parade were a great
success. Tommy Miglori's boat won
first prize for the boat parade (no doubt,
the free beer), and Father Migliori's fishing
wise men won first prize for yard display. Harry
Cannook, Jr and his Imperial Canadians
were a big hit at the concert afterwards. It
was purely a case of "a good time had by
all".
And that's the news
from Oneida Lake, where all the women have
too much to do, all the men drink Canadian
beer and all the children can hardly wait
until Christmas.
Copyright © 2000, J. W. Kelly. All
rights reserved.
