MEME Mondays, Pride Parade (part 1)

Hey Blogger Friends, it's MEME Monday, and today's MEME is all about PRIDE. Thanks for understanding the light posts the last couple of days, between Cleveland Pride, and Fathers Day, it was a busy weekend. Hope you all had a great weekend yourselves. The Pride parade and festival in Cleveland on Saturday was a great time, but HOT!! As I told you yesterday, it was in the low 90's with no cloud cover. Thank goodness the festival was down at Voinovich Park, named for Ohio's former Governor, now Senator, so we had some nice breezes coming off the lake later in the day. For those of you that don't know it Cleveland sits right on Lake Erie. The park is also right next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Museum of Science and Industry, and The Cleveland Browns football stadium. I am going to break this up into two posts because of blogger picture limitations, so on this I will talk about the parade with pic's, and in a little while will chat about the festival and some pic's from there.

The parade was supposed to begin at 1pm, and I wasn't sure what that meant in gay time. Drag time, you have to add 30 to 45 minutes, but with parade permits and all, I wasn't sure, but you know what....It started at 1:01pm, color me impressed. The parade started near the center of downtown, and was about a mile and a half or so trip down to the festival park. I parked at the starting point and walked down to the festival along with the parade. (Great walk down to festival, steep uphill walk back to car almost killed me after all that sun.) I have to say I was dissappointed at the turn-out, but blamed it on the heat maybe. There were stragglers all along the parade route, but wasn't really a concentrated group till you got closer to the festival grounds and end of route. There was a scattering of about 10-20 bible thumping protesters about 3/4 into the parade, blowing bullshit with a blowhorn from the opposite side of the street. What was really great was a large contingent of supporters stood directly in front of them and pretty much drowned them out every time a group or float went by. The ironic silliness of the protesting is that they did it right in front of an artpiece that is a HUGE red rubber stamp, with the words "FREE" across the front of the stamp. The parade itself was nice, not a lot of floats, but lot's of groups showing support and community, especially a lot of gay friendly churches that was nice to see. Now I am going to give you a little PRIDE MEME about me, and show you some of the parade pictures.

MEME Pride Facts About The Gay Guru

First Came Out of Closet: 18

First Person I Told: My Best Friend Doug

First Pride Parade: Los Angeles/West Hollywood

Gay Causes I support: HRC, Local GLBT Community Center, Ohio AIDS Coalition, NOCI

Parade Kick-Off


PFlag Contigency


Sponsored by Great Cleveland Club "The Grid"


The Rainbow Band


The Cleveland Mustangs Softball Team and Supporters


The LGBT Cleveland Community Center and Youth Group


The Big Red "FREE" Stamp, The Small Group of Protesters Were Near


The Humans Right Commission


The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network


And Just a Fun Float


Be sure to check below for pictures of the Pride Celebration in the park. Will also add a fun MEME for you to do as well. No "In The News" today due to Pride postings.......GG