A Leiper’s Fork Christmas Parade with a Squeal

This is probably my 3^rd Leiper’s Fork Christmas Parade.  I posted on last year’s parade (Dec 25, 2012) and do so again this year. Each one was fun and a wacky.  This year’s parade had it all: Pam Tillis, antique automobiles, the elementary-middle school band, Arnold the pig, Williamson County Pageant Winners, the General Lee, horses, riders and dogs, the Grinch, and even Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus were at the end.

Everyone knows about the Dukes of Hazard. The TV series ran from 1979 through 1985. One of the most memorable props in the series was the General Lee, an orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the number “01” on the door.  Of course there were the Dukes.

Besides the General Lee, and a bit less recognizable, was “Arnold the Pig.” Arnold was featured in the TV series Green Acres that ran from 1965 through 1971. The sitcom starred Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, who moved from New York City to a rural farm. Of course, the whole premise made for some silliness. Arnold lived indoors, watched TV and was treated as if he were human.

It brought to mind a visit my wife and I made to Florida one summer in the early seventies. We were in graduate school then and lived in East Tennessee. My Aunt “Bill” and her brother lived in Florida and had a small ranch in which they had several head of cattle and a bull. They were hopeful to make a living raising cattle. She and my father had one of those fabulous relationships in which a lot of teasing and joking went on. So of course, being in Florida and near where she lived, we went to see her. Behold, she had a pig and like the TV star pig, her pig was allowed to go in and out of the house as he wanted. And he did. We watched him. Thank goodness he was not as big as the pig in the parade. I asked her his name. She told me his name was “Arnold.” I thought at first he had been named after Arnold in Green Acres. But no, she was determined to have the last laugh with my dad. Aunt Bill, with a gleam in her eye, told us she had named him after my dad. His name, “Arnold.” On returning home and telling my dad about Aunt Bill’s pet pig, I am sure I heard her and “Arnold” squeal with laughter even though she was 700 miles away in Florida.

I have another story from this visit, but alas, it must wait. It involves the bull.

Enough of this story, take a look at parade.