This Hi-Yu Festival season, we’ve been privileged to correspond with some of the folks whose hard work makes a ton of West Seattle summer fun possible. Among them are Hi-Yu President Tim Winston, and Jim Edwards, who among many other things has a key role in making the Hi-Yu Parade happen, and a big role in the West Seattle Big Band, which keeps a busy schedule that included the Concert in the Park earlier this month. After our Torchlight Parade report including the photo of the Hi-Yu float getting a little help, Jim sent us some parade photos, and the tale of his 15 years driving the float …

Jim photographed the float from the Westlake Park grandstand area, just before it needed a little help. He also sent pix of his daughter, who represented West Seattle in this year’s Miss Seafair competition, and the outgoing Miss Seafair, Erin Waid, also from WS … those pix and Jim’s float-history tale, after the click.

For background, Jim didn’t just send this to us out of the blue. When he sent his photos, he mentioned he had driven the float for 15 years, and we asked if he had a little more history to share. Here’s what he sent, with relevant photos (those Miss Seafair pix will follow the float story, btw):

The Float is a 1967 Buick GS 400. ( a Gran Sport)
A hell of a collectors vehicle now a days.

(Gran Sport photo sent by Jim)

GM allowed the Buicks to run the big blocks for the first time
in 1967. Buick in turn dropped the full Gran Sport name in favor
of getting the 400 (Cubic Inch) in the badge.

The float is a bastard to keep running, but I knew it pretty
well. One time I got to the end of Marysville parade and asked
when the next escort is, and the marshal said twenty minutes. So
I turned it off. Then he came up to me five minutes later and
say “OK lets go”. I told him “NO NO NO, You said twenty
minutes”. “This thing ain’t going to start for another fifteen”.
He just shook his head and wandered off. Fifteen minutes later,
he came back, I hit the button, it rolled one crank, and
stopped. Still holding the button, everything is silent, and
everyone is holding their breath, then it would just fire off,
and come back to life. That happened dozens of times.

Not to knock what the current caretakers are doing, that float
has 10 more years and 50 or 60 or so more parades under its belt
since I drove it. I respect anybody willing to jump in that
thing and drive. It is a challenge. But I loved every minute of
it.

I resurrected the float in 1982, after it had gone a year or two
of not operating. Hi-yu was scraping the bottom of the barrel,
had no operating budget and was in poor shape. I brought some
continuity to the float program. Everybody told me how it always
breaks down. And whenever I took a weekend off, it usually did.

I did three parades that first year, then took it up to 12 the
next year and kept it at that level until I started to step
aside in 1997. I didn’t design every float, but did design many
of them. I didn’t drive every parade, but was always there to
drive when others grew tired of it.

My 1996 float was an exercise in simplicity. Which was telling
of my approaching burnout. But I didn’t need help to take it to
the parade, I could set it up by myself, and brought home
trophies just the same.

In the early years, I would drive that thing to Tacoma,
Puyallup, Sumner, then back home that evening. I usually had
last years float at Daffodil then would build new before
Marsville in June. So the drive up the old west valley highway
would push 60 MPH in places. I would leave a trail of Floral
sheeting from here to the Puyallup Valley.

I would drive it to Marysville, and even to Port Orchard’s
evening parade. The drive home from that in the dark was
exciting to say the least. I had no headlights on it. My pilot
vehicle would be behind me with high beams on so I could see.

The Seattle Police use to provide Motorcycle escorts to all the
Seafair parades. So I would be fully assembled, up to 16 feet
wide, blowing through red lights all over town, whistles and on
occasion sirens wailing as I would come barreling through like
some head of state. One guy up on 23rd E yelled “Hey
Needlemeyer” from Animal House fame. It was actually D-Day who
did the driving. Always wanted to take some festooning and write
“Bite Me” on the back of the float, but never had enough guts
to.

I wasn’t shy about driving that thing as fast as I could go. I
had a habit of laying down a few feet of rubber whenever I
pulled out of the Seafair float barn, just so the police knew
who was driving. The run across 145th NE to the Lake City
parade, was the best. We would be going so fast, the bikes would
scream by me to block the next intersection, and they barely get
stopped as I went by they would drop the clutch and scream
around me to the next block. The brakes on the Kawasaki Police
1000’s were usually smoking heavily by the time we made it to
Lake City Way.

On the long drive home on those Saturday nights, I usually had
“The Swing Years” on KUOW blasting from the float speakers. On
more than one occasion I had exhausted Seattle Motorcycle
Officers pull up along side of me, as we cruised down Aurora,
singing the words of the songs at the top of their lungs. They
would take me straight to my house that last parade of the year.
My neighbors in Shorewood were always out on their porches as
the blue lights from the bikes would light up the entire
neighborhood.

We started moving to a tow truck for transportation to the
parades. The old Trans-Western Towing, then later Stan’s Mt.
View Towing. Photos of the float are still on the wall at
Stan’s. Now they use GT Tow. One in particular I took, I
actually drove the float up on the lift bed tow truck fully
assembled, thirteen feet tall, twenty three feet long and
sixteen feet wide. It made for a very impressive photo, sitting
on top of that truck.

After a few years the Seafair float barn, and Seafair marshals
tow trucks were discontinued. Then the Police escorts were
phased out, and attending a community parade became much more
difficult.

Seafair tried adding a Sunday morning Parade in Bellevue. They
would just forward all the torchlight info to Bellevue
organizers, and they just expected us to show up. SPD would not
take us across the floating bridge, and I wasn’t willing to stay
up all night getting the float ready for a tow truck ride, so I
always declined repeated phone calls for my application.

Then Sunday morning would roll around, I’m sitting on the couch,
reading my paper, with the parade on TV in the background. Then
I heard the on air people say “and next we have the Hi-Yu Float
from West Seattle…” I look at the TV and they are showing an
empty roadway. I look out the front window to the float in my
driveway. Then I hear them say “the float must have had some
mechanical troubles” then go ahead and read all the PA script
from the Torchlight Parade… This happened each year of that
parade. We got better coverage there than at Torchlight… and
we never even went there.

In the years that followed 1996, a new designer came in and did
wonderful things with the float. That’s when I stepped aside,
with a sigh of relief if you will. The West Seattle Big Band was
starting to take off and the timing was good. I still did most
of the structural work during those years, and that was a
challenge in itself as the designs put a huge strain on the
frame. At one point I had a 13 foot overhang of the front axle.
I heard one time they had 5 men mounting the design element on
this island, and the back wheels of the float were bouncing off
the ground. Guess my welds held up pretty good, and everyone
thought I overbuilt it.

But I feel the program began to lose perspective about this
time.

Back in 1993, my year as president of Hi-Yu. I had made
reciprocal arrangements with many float communities throughout
the northwest. That in turn attracted attention of others, and
the West Seattle parade had over a dozen professional floats in
the parade that year. In 1996 I spent $1200 on the float and did
a dozen parades. In the years that followed, over $6000 was
spent on the float and because of the demands on labor, it
reached a low of three parades participated in, in one year.

So you have $100 per parade cost with a substantial return for
the WS Parade Vs. $2000 per parade with virtually no return to
the WS Parade, but some really cool trophies. It needs to be
kept in perspective of what the purpose of the float is. I think
the Hi-Yu staff has done just that the past few years.

The quality of construction in recent years has been great, far
better than I ever could have done. The float needs to be
expanded width wise slightly to balance it out, and that is not
to difficult to do. But before a large amount of money is spent
doing that, it is time to consider a new power plant.

A rear wheel drive vehicle I believe is still the best way to
go, but I’m not a policy maker for Hi-Yu. If you took a GM 1/2
ton truck chassis, cut the front clip off and extend the frame a
distance. Shorten the drive shaft, and move the engine to the
back of the float. Build a low slung frame on top of the
chassis, now you have a nice platform for design elements. Fold
down sides would give the float a nice shape. I have a mock up
of a folding design used on the old Victoria float which is
ingenious.

You spend this time and effort on a new float, better include a
covered trailer. Of course lots of space available on the sides
of that trailer for advertising sponsorships, which would be
seen throughout the Northwest. Don’t forget the winch, to be
able to get a broke down float, in the trailer.

Now you have a reliable float, a covered trailer (with winch),
and you don’t burn out your float volunteers from all the extra
work involved with open trailers, tarps and lots of repairs.
Come up with a vehicle to tow the trailer, as long as all it
does is tow the trailer, it doesn’t need to be licensed under
state law. A loophole if you will for float trailer tow
vehicles. Hi-Yu would be good for many years to come.

Interest has been growing, our community changing, and the
American Legion Post 160 will be celebrating the 75th Annual
West Seattle Parade next year. We need to make it a special one.

I’ll get down off my soap box now.

(NOT the 75th Anniversary. the 74th anniversary of the 1st
parade (1934), hence the 75th parade)

Use this as you will, but please include my utmost respect for
those who are currently involved with the program.

Now those pix. First, previous Miss Seafair Erin Waid from WS, seen on the TV viewfinder Saturday night; then, Jim’s daughter Michelle Edwards (right) riding in the parade.