Aug 30, 2019 4 min read

It was a balmy Saturday evening in Holmes County, Ohio, and the residents were ready for a show. This being Amish country, many of the women were wearing long blue or purple dresses and bonnets; their husbands wore beards and black hats. The families sat in canvas chairs along the roads, their picnic blankets stretched out on the front lawns of their beautifully landscaped yards.

I was driving home from a long bike ride on the trail.

Fireworks display, I thought, or maybe a parade – although that didn’t make sense because even on the back roads the people were waiting.

When I visit that part of Ohio, I like to take the side roads, to see the farms and the small schoolhouses and the horses plowing the fields. That evening my route took me far into back country. And all along the people were sitting out.

When I got to the main road in the town of Berlin, I found that traffic was stopped. I indicated to the police officer that I wanted to turn left and he waved me into the intersection. As I headed up Main Street, I saw that people were sitting and standing two-deep. In front of me was a bulldozer on a flatbed truck; behind me was a semi rig.

I knew then what all the people were waiting for. It was the night of the Truck Parade, and I was marching in it.

That policeman had inadvertently waved me into one of Holmes County’s biggest and most beloved public events, the parade in which companies and farmers line up to show off their motorized might. Fire trucks, water trucks, flatbeds hauling horse buggies and backhoes – all of them were spiffed up to shiny splendor to drive through town and say “Hey, look at me.”

And there I was, me in my Subaru with my bike hanging from the rack at the back. For a moment, I panicked.

A memory came back to me. Early in my career, as a 24-year-old news anchor, I was invited to ride in a parade in a small town in western Ohio. The organizers had kindly offered me the honor based on my being known from television.

“You’re in the red convertible,” the organizer said, directing me to sit atop the back seat. As we drove down the parade route, I noticed how narrow the street was and how close the people were. As we moved slowly past a large group, I heard the words that still sting all these years later.

“Who’s she?” came a woman’s voice

“I don’t know,” said another.

“Maybe she’s Miss Ohio?” said the first.

And then this:

“She’s not pretty enough.”

There was no sign on the car to identify me or to explain why I was there. It’s true, even at age 24, I was probably not pretty enough to be Miss Ohio.

And things have not gotten any prettier since.

But there I was in the Truck Parade. People waved as I passed. I felt trapped, out of place, unworthy to take a space in this procession.

What must the spectators have thought? I hadn’t a big truck or a backhoe or one of the ATVs that were lined up ahead of me. And still, the people waved.

Maybe they were asking each other who I was and why I was there. I couldn’t hear them because I was embarrassed and didn’t roll down my windows. And then to my left a group of little boys in hats and suspenders were cheering. Behind them, their mothers waved.

It’s hard not to wonder what they were thinking. I did have a bike on my car; maybe they thought I was there to show it off.

Or maybe what I saw there was that kind bit of human nature that says, when someone rides by in a parade, you wave at them. And even if you don’t belong in the parade, you wave back.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.