By Patrick Robinson

If you’ve ever taken part in a parade, you understand what an odd experience it is. Not that parades are not great and fun for everyone, but let’s be honest. Seeing someone drive by you at 5 miles an hour about 20 feet from you is just not your daily experience and would be even stranger if it wasn’t for 80 or so other parade entries doing the same thing.

I’ve been in parades and shot thousands of photos of them for the newspaper, plus my history with them goes way back.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s White Center was in the process of rebuilding itself. My Dad, Jerry Robinson, played a central role in that process as Editor/Publisher of the White Center News helping rally the community in 1964 to build a float for the Torchlight Parade. White Center won the Best Float award that year. It marked a genuine high point for White Center to see our small community get recognition for being the best in the region.

Maybe it was that pride my father felt in that achievement, but his urge to build floats was powerful. He loved to build things in the garage anyway so the next step was just a matter of inspiration.

That would come in the form of a whale. Actually a killer whale or what we now call an Orca named Namu. 

These were the days before everyone was really conscious of animal welfare and would never happen today but a man named Ted Griffen in 1965 bought an Orca that had become entangled in some fishing nets near Namu, British Columbia. He arranged have a floating pen built and then spent the next ten days or so bring Namu the 450 miles south to the Seattle waterfront. As the very first Killer Whale in captivity Namu was a media sensation with tens of thousands mobbing the scene where he was kept. In hindsight rather obviously it was cruel and wrong but those days and the many that followed in Marine parks in Florida and California would come to serve as instructional for those hoping to end the imprisonment of these magnificent creatures. 

But back to the parade. My dad was always interested in promoting the paper and he recruited me and my younger brother Scott to help him do it. Somewhere, he found a refrigerator box, and he had a jig saw. Add some plywood and paint and Voila! He had an odd tiny tug boat on casters and a cutout of half of an orca to tow behind it. 

If you could not guess, I was the engine. Inside the box. On a very hot summer day. 

We transported the pieces to the parade route and then began the trudge. The box was not big enough to permit a full stride. So for the full 3/4 mile of the parade route I basically scuffed my ankles about every 2 seconds as I baby stepped, leaving a trail of sweat in my tiny tug’s wake.  People loved it they told me.

You’d think I would learn from that. But no.

The next year, the inspiration was the Super Sonic Transport that Boeing was in competition to build. My Dad’s idea was to build one too. Seriously. Only smaller. But not by much. Roughly 30 feet long.

So we built the frame out of plywood and 2 x 2’s and clearly since it would never fly, the weight didn’t matter. At least not to HIM. I was enthusiastic about it myself. But then I’m not that bright.

The skin of the SST was made from used aluminum newspaper printing plates. By themselves they don’t weigh much. Reversed they looked just like aircraft metal. Put 75 or 90 of them together and you have a torture device. 

I know this because once more I was the engine. Originally one of my brother’s friends was going be inside the SST pushing with me. But he never showed up. And the parade must go on they insisted. So it was up to me.

My younger brother Scott was the pilot, actually steering. Again it was about 85 degrees which inside the SST translated to about 140 degrees. It started out ok. But it was HEAVY. Then I quickly became disoriented. It was dark, hot, and weird. From time to time I would hear my brother scream “STOP!” since the drill team we were following was pausing to perform. I figure I had been pushing for about 12 years when two cheeseburgers came skidding in like hockey pucks. I was only able to catch one of them. The other was crushed by the SST.

I think I probably lost 15 pounds and aged 4 years that day but at least I did my part for the aerospace industry… and my Dad.