Even if you’re not part of the original “Bridge Gang” of Lowell, you can still sit with them during the annual Labor Day parade; you just have to “follow the rules.”
“We don’t allow rowdiness, and we pick up the trash. See how clean it is?” said Tom Hughes, one of the original members, before he introduced his sons and daughters. “Other than that, we welcome everybody.”
Originally comprised of the Burger, Tolan and Hughes families, the group, which gathers at the new bridge on Commercial Avenue at the parade’s end, have been bringing their families to see the parade for five generations, and as long as some of them have been alive. Sandi Burger, who lives up the street from the bridge, for example, has been front and center for the parade for 73 years.
“I was born and raised here, and I’ve been to every one since,” Burger said. “I have job now of candy bagger – I pick up the candy for my grandkids.”
“And she’ll probably pass it out for Halloween, too,” joked friend Peggy Tolan MacJannet, another one of the original members.
Martha Tolan Gatlin, who now lives in Cedar Lake but still never misses the parade, remembers when the parade went down the other side of Commercial, past Side Track bar. When the bridge was built, they packed up their brood and moved to it.
And with all that time watching the town celebrate the holiday, they know how to prepare for steamy weather. Martha and Peg were quick to offer a cold water or chilled damp rag to those who appeared to be feeling the heat.
“We do share our space or what we have,” MacJannet said. “We may not see each other a ton during the winter, but this parade is the place to see our friends and to catch up.”
It’s also a time to honor those who fought for workers’ rights so long ago, according to Gatlin.
“We support the unions,” Gatlin said. “Another thing, and I know they do this in Beecher (Ill.) too, is that Lowell honors the farmers. They may not be union, but it’s hard labor, what they do.”
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McJannet admires the people who perform each year in the parade. This year, for the 96th annual one, there were 90 attractions.
“You get to see that they’ve given all their energy to honoring labor,” she said. “I could do it if they gave me a motorized chair.”
But McJannet also knows her limits. She marveled as the ever-popular Orak Shriners began their figure-8 formation on motorcycles.
“I’d like to see what that would be like if I rode on one of them,” she said. “It’d be like Lucy and Ethel, and I’d be both of them.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.