Sebastopol parade draws sparse crowd on cloudy day

Monica Fajardo got to Main Street in Sebastopol about a half-hour before the Apple Blossom Parade was about to start on a cool, damp and cloudy Saturday morning.

She had no trouble placing two folding chairs at curbside, with a gray umbrella sheltering her from the moist air.

Prime viewing spots were readily available for the annual west county event that previously packed Main Street sidewalks with spectators standing several rows deep.

But this truncated, out-of-season parade was unlike any other in recent memory.

“Whether it’s COVID or the weather or not enough people knew about it,” Fajardo surmised. “Everybody expects it in the spring.”

Nonetheless, she was happy to be there for the parade, typically held in April when the area’s famed Gravenstein apple trees are blossoming.

“I’m in the mood for a parade,” Fajardo said. “It’s been one and a half years. We’re all itching for something happy.”

Shortly before the procession kicked off at 10 a.m., Sebastopol Fire Chief Bill Braga, a 39-year veteran with the department and the parade, eyed Main Street in both directions.

“I don’t know if there’s even 1,000 here now,” he said.

When spectators stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalks, the parade — sponsored by the Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce — drew 20,000 people, Braga said.

Taylor Peterson set up four chairs at 7 a.m., ultimately occupied by his wife, Rapha, his friend Casey White and five children.

Peterson found out about the parade in a letter from the Police Department advising there would be no parking Saturday morning on Petaluma Avenue.

“Everybody I talked to said they had no idea it was happening,” he said.

Peterson and White said they had marched in the parade with sports teams and 4-H groups years ago.

There was no reviewing stand or announcer, as in years past, and the parade was over in about 35 minutes.

Also missing was the post-parade festival at Ives Park, with music, food, kids’ games, exhibits and an art show — all of them virtual this year, according to the appleblossomfest.com website.

Still, the parade was rich in hometown flavor.

The West County High School Band, playing horns, woodwinds and drums, marched in red, white and blue tie-dyed T-shirts. A man wearing an Elvis wig drove a pickup truck in the Sebastopol Area Senior Center contingent.

Civic clubs and local businesses — including a pizza parlor and a cannabis dispensary — were represented, along with eight 1950s-vintage cars from the Redwood Empire Chevy Classic Club.

Sarah Reidenbach and Kate Kuzminski, sitting in the bed of a pickup parked in a city lot, waved to Jean Redus, dancing, singing and playing trombone with the Kiwanis Club parade group, and to their son, Fisher Lamborn, in the high school band.

Lamborn’s involvement was the only way they knew about the parade, which posted no advertising.

Ella Andersson, 5, said the parade highlights were “the candy part” — treats tossed from a float — and the balloons.

Her mother Ariel, a baton twirler in the parade years ago, enjoyed “the full spectrum of ages dancing around, smiling,” she said. “We haven’t seen that recently.”

Braga said he was pleased to see his firefighters of the year for 2019 and 2020 — Alex Roa and Sandi Satyadinata — riding high at the tail end of a ladder truck.

The 2020 Apple Blossom Festival and Parade were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 2021 Apple Blossom Festival was virtual this year and celebrates the chamber’s 100-year anniversary. It is available at www.appleblossomfest.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.