The roll of honor:
Bob Armstrong
Joseph Dobrian
Dawn Fox
Jim Lesczynski
Caitlyn Ruks
Catherine Ruks
Thomas Ruks
Bonnie Scott

We were all soaked to the bone by the time it was over, but I think everybody had fun. We were dry for most of the morning and early afternoon while we decorated the float and assembled the costumes, but once the parade actually started so did the rain. Although the parade was only 5 blocks long, it moved _really_ slowly (maybe 1.5 hours), and the rain was quite heavy by the end. But everyone was a trooper.

We gave away all the leftover Guns For Tots toys (maybe 60-70 packages), along with some flyers. The big difference was that this time the parents and kids along the parade route loved the toys and loved us! We could have given out 5 times as many if we had them, and everyone was very appreciative. Much different than our Harlem experience.

For ourselves, we each had a long fish-shaped squirt gun with waves along the stocks that complimented our mermaid uniforms nicely. We carried these on our shoulders, except when Bob would periodically lead us through the "present arms" drill. We also had some great call-and-response marching cadences that entertained the crowd:

"All these tickets make us frown!
Kick out Bloomberg next time 'round!
On the sea and on the land!
Keep a squirt gun in your hand!
Sound off:
One two!
Sound off:
Three four!
Bring it on down:
One two three four
One two... three four!"

Sometimes we would subsitute for the first line:
"Bloomberg is the one we hate!
New York is a nanny state!"

The crowds cheered us on every block, even when we ran out of free toys. One group of guys yelled, "All right! Libertarians! We'll vote for you! It won't make any difference, but we'll vote for you!"

The only slight downer was in front of the judge's booth. We stopped and performed our routine, and the m.c. said, "Okay, that was the Manhattan Libertarian Party. We thank you for participating - as misguided as you may be - but thank you." My wife shot at the bastard with her squirt gun as we departed.

Friendly fire was the order of the day, as our Militia fragged each other with our squirt guns throughout the march. (Not that you could notice much in the rain.) We had a brief battle with another float, where a mermaid on board fired on us with her own squirt gun. Since she initiated force, we swiftly returned fire and our superior firepower quickly gained us the upper hand. Some kids along the sidelines had great fun throwing our water balloons at Bob.

All in all a good time was had, and I think we even accomplished some outreach. I think we should make this an annual tradition. If we could have this much fun in rotten weather, think what a ball we'd have on a nice summer day at Coney Island.

One of the most impressive aspects of this project, IMHO, is how it was a total team effort in pulling it together. All too often, we have 1 or 2 people doing the heavy lifting for the rest of the group, but on this one, eveyone lent a hand. Bob had the original idea. Joseph and Thomas each wrote, designed and copied special fliers for the event for us to hand out. Dawn made these really cool labels for the toy gun packages. The labels showed a mermaid/fishtail bottom merged with a Statue of Liberty top and the words "Have a fun and freedom-filled Mermaid Parade/Courtesy of the Manhattan Libertarian Party/www.ManhattanLP.org". Bonnie drove down for the event, borrowed her mother's jeep, and decorated it with beach toys, netting, lobster buoys, and rainbow umbrellas. Bonnie also designed our costumes. The Ruks topped off our float with an inflatable palm tree and some other decorations. We also had our Manhattan LP vinyl banner strung alongside the float. I mostly bugged people all week to attend, registered us in the parade, and picked up some of the last-minute costume accessories. As I said, truly a team effort.

Thanks very much to everyone who participated. The rest of y'all missed out on an unforgettable Libertarian event, dry as you may have been.

I'll drop off the film at the 1-hour place tomorrow and send out some pictures shortly thereafter. (You couldn't pay me to go back out in the rain today.)

Jim Lesczynski