by James Glaser
July 25, 2003

As I have been writing in past columns our local town Northome, is having its Centennial this month. I live in the township just south and my neighbors and I are building a float for the parade. We are making a cake five foot in diameter and sixty six inches high, having three layers.

I built the armature out of 1x2s and half inch plywood. Some of the ladies down the road are frosting it with fabric. Peggy Wickland is our local theater person, every year she makes the costumes for the outdoor play in Medora, North Dakota and for several productions in Minneapolis. It is nice to have a pro working on your float. A few years ago, Peggy turned my truck into a huge black bear that would have looked good in any New York Parade.

The cake is really about 100 inches tall to the tip of the candle. The top layer is hinged so that it can open and a lady in the bathing suit will pop out in front of the judging stand. This is where I learned that some Christians have dirty minds. Some of the local ladies were aghast at having someone in a bathing suit representing our township.

I am sure they had visions of a bachelor party and some young thing in a yellow bikini jumping out and singing Happy Birthday like Marilyn Monroe sang to President Kennedy on his birthday.

We are all going to sing Happy Birthday and the reason the cake is five foot wide, is because we had no idea of who was going to jump out. Plywood is four foot wide and it would have been a snap to build a four foot cake, but that meant only a real petite women could be our swim gal. The women is still a secret, but I can say from the start we were planning on a 1920s swim suit and a bathing cap with a feather in it. Nothing sinful or racy here, just good clean fun.

After we sing Happy Birthday to Northome, all the township people will get pans of cupcakes from under the first layer of the cake and hand them out. Because the theme for the Parade is, "Free in 2003," the cake is a cream colored fabric with blue trim and the letters spelling out Happy Birthday Northome are in red.

All of the people working on this float are just neighbors that liked the idea and we all got together and did it. The cupcakes will involve a lot of the people right around here. It sure is a good way to make friends with people you probably would never know if you didn't work with them on a fun goofy project like this.

POST SCRIPT DEATHS:

Early Thursday morning three American Soldiers were killed when their convoy came under attack with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.