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It will be a bittersweet evening on Thursday as I'll watch the Dodgeville Homecoming parade come past my parent's house on Chapel Street for the last time. They will be closing on their house in November after three long years, with a good possibility of moving toward the Spring Green area.
Every year since we moved to town in the fourth grade, my siblings and our friends would gather on the steps of our big brick house and watch the parade go by. We watched kids come off busses in the 'old middle school' parking lot, lining the streets in front of the now Health and Human Services building, waiting for a handful of candy to come their way.
Some years we'd have a little pre-game party Friday night with pizza and pop, and then head up to the game. We spent many Friday nights after the football game watching scary movies in the basement or just hanging out. And every once in awhile, someone would challenge Mom and Dad to fooseball, and would most certainly lose.
As we got older, my girlfriends and I would gather around the dining room table, scattered with make up, hair spray and bobby pins, and get ready for the big Homecoming dance. Every year Mom would take our picture, and one year I actually had a date!
My brother, a strictly basketball guy in high school, joined the football team for one year, and I remember seeing him on the football float just that once. Otherwise, we'd wave to all the kids we knew and to the parents of the kids we knew, proudly holding photos of their athletes as babies. (I always liked that part.)
After we all 'left the nest,' Mom started inviting her girlfriends and other moms over to watch the parade. But one by one, their kids graduated high school too. I have a feeling they will gather again this year, for the last time.
You'll find me and Mom outside our house on Chapel Street on Thursday for the last time. I'll be carrying my camera, so be sure to smile as you go by! With memories like these, I know Mom and I will be smiling that day too.