Organizers are thankful as marchers dodge raindrops
WOONSOCKET – The 39th annual edition of Autumnfest slipped past a potential pitfall Monday morning when heavy rains passed through western New England, allowing the parade to go on with just a sprinkle or two before it started and as it came to a close.
That left Autumnfest General Chair Linda Plays feeling a great sense of relief by afternoon as the Columbus Day weekend festival cleared what could have been a rainout given the forecasts that had preceded it.
“It went fabulous, the parade was amazing,” Plays said when found at the Autumnfest Command Post after a busy morning as parade chair getting all the bands and participating organizations and floats off from their starting points on Diamond Hill Road before passing respectable Autumnfest Parade crowds lining the route to World War II Veterans Memorial Park and the official city reviewing stand at the park entrance on Social Street.
As has been the case in the past, area high school bands and special guest bands from around the region including the headliner University of Rhode Island Marching Band, stepped off with the parade and gave the spectators what they were seeking— plenty of music, color, and enough excitement to make the kids smile and their parents happy for having set up their curbside viewing cabanas and lawn chairs. As one longtime Autumnfest
observer said later of the bands participating, “it was good that they all came to the parade. That’s good for Woonsocket, that they didn’t let them down.”
Plays said the weather had been a focus of concern into last night but she had not wanted to see it do something that it hasn’t done in the past, reschedule or cancel the parade.
“I watched the weather and I think I was up every single hour last night watching the weather,” Plays explained. “I knew my window of time to finish the parade was about three hours. So I was looking to kind of finish up, keeping it as tight as I could, at about 12, 12:30 p.m.,” she said. “So we really kept the divisions really tight ” she said while explaining how the prompt start and quick pacing of the event kept the 10division Autumnfest Parade within its window of better than expected weather and dry overall for its participants.
“My objective was to bring a great parade to this city and I think that’s what we did,” Plays said. “We accomplished it. The crowds were out there, people were cheering us on. And I think having URI as the headliner band, 130 members strong, that just absolutely capped the whole parade, it really did,” Plays said. The URI band stopped in front of the city reviewing stand and performed two full songs at a point on the parade route where the crowds were the heaviest and that also helped draw parade watchers into the park for the final day of Autmun-fest fun, getting a hot meal on the food court, heading over to the Fanelli Amusement midway to try a game or carnival ride, or to listen to the music groups performing on the stage. The Big Nazo Band went on as planned in the afternoon and had the kids in the crowd following a band member in a line dance weaving through the audience and up on stage as their parents caught all the action on their cell phones as another last day highlight.
Plays said she knew everything would work out for parade day when she got a text late Sunday night from the band director of the Ichabod Crane Band from New York, an Autumnfest regular for the past 25 years, and he said they were on their way and would be there to march rain or shine.
“They never once faltered,” Plays said while noting the band made a fourhour trip one way to be on Diamond Hill Road for the Monday morning’s parade set up.
Plays said she did speak to past general chairs to hear what they had faced in similar situations but learned that despite some bad weather events, some cold ones and some rainy ones, the parade had always gone on rain or shine.
“And I said I’ll be darned if I’m going to be the parade chair that cancels this parade — we’ve been waiting too long for it,” Plays said.
Monday morning it was a much different mood at the assembly area as everyone started getting ready to make good on Plays’ sentiment.
“People were showing up, floats were arriving, and then I started feeling really good when I could see that the sky was clearing a little bit and I said you know what we are going to do this,” Plays said.
Joe Martin, a longtime Autumnfest volunteer, was back on duty directing the arriving parade participants to the spaces reserved for them in the parking lots between the Walnut Hill and Diamond Hill plazas and making sure all the floats were ready to enter the parade as their assigned divisions moved up Diamond Hill.
The parade judges also made their way up Diamond Hill Road looking over the floats and judging them for the parade awards before the stepping off time approached. Then everyone, Parade Grand Marshal Paul Shatraw, the police and fire department honor guards, local veterans, public officials, and all the bands, special guests and civic organizations began the steady march up Diamond Hill and the rest of the parade route at 9:30 a.m.
There were the longtime Autumnfest favorites in the line up of course, the Sadwin family driving Dan Sadwin’s original parade entry— a 1957 three-wheeled BMW Isetta, the Shriners’ mini cars, and the local scout groups, Woonsocket Redskins football players and cheerleaders, Miss Teen Rhode Island and Miss Rhode Island and the specialty bands like the Bristol County Fife and Drum members highlighting their performances with occasional colonial musket fire.
The local bands included the Woonsocket Villa Novan High School Band and the middle school band one after another, and also the Good Shepherd Catholic Regional School Band, and the Mount Saint Charles Academy Band. The North Smithfield High School Band was on Diamond Hill Road once again as was the Burrillville Broncos High School Band, and the Lincoln Lions High School Band. Douglas High School’s band was another longtime Autumnfest favorite showing up as was the Moonlight Marching Band. The Rhode Island National Guard 88th Army Band led off the All-Military Division and the Woonsocket High School Jr. ROTC Wing showed its military precision marching in the same division.
The URI band came up the route to wind up the march toward World War II Park and its special concert offering there.
From Plays’ perspective, that was the last big hurdle to reach a “successful” Autumnfest weekend and she admitted to feeling able to “kicking back a little,” at the Command Post for a minutes before taking on the afternoon tasks heading toward the festival’s wrap.
“I’m going to enjoy the rest of this festival,” she said. “This afternoon people are here they are eating, they are going to shop at the arts and crafts, they’re on rides and we are going to cap off this event with as many people as we did on the first day,” she said. “It did work out,” she said of making it through all the challenges that come with putting on such a large local event.
“It really did and I couldn’t tell you how happy I am. Autumnfest still brings people out,” she said.
At the food court on Monday, the Rev. Dr. Sammy Vaughan of the St. James Baptist Church was found taking in the scene with St. James Associate Minister Lee A. Williams, Lee’s wife Pamela, a St. James pianist, and Lee’s aunt, Emma Dandy.
“Oh it’s great, it’s one of the best ones yet,” Vaughan pronounced while noting Autumnfest seems to get better year after year. As for the light drizzle beginning to fall at that point, Vaughan said it wouldn’t matter. “I brought my umbrella,” the minister observed.
With Autumnfest 39 complete, Plays said it will soon be time to begin thinking about Autumnfest 40, the 40th anniversary of the city festival.
“We’ll take a couple of weeks off, I’ll meet with my committee and we’ll talk about all the good and anything we have to address and then planning Autumnfest 40 starts in January,” she said. Follow Joseph Nadeau on Twitter: @JNad75