Our town is known for its annual Irrigation Festival. You may have heard of it. Probably not. Long ago, irrigation ditches were dug to bring water into our valley from a nearby river so crops could be grown.

Apparently that was a big deal back then and the reason Sequim, pronounced like “squid” but with an m at the end, grew from being an unknown town in western Washington to being a slightly less unknown town. These days, there’s not much in the way of farming going on. Mostly people move here to retire. As my father likes to say, Sequim is a great place to die. My second-grade teacher told me that was a “disturbing” viewpoint after I used it to explain why my grandmother had recently moved to town.

The high point of the festival is the Irrigation Parade. The parade takes place on the first Saturday in May. People come from all over. They line Main Street hours in advance, sometimes parking overnight in campers just to reserve the best views. The parade is filled with all the sights and sounds our small town has to offer, including marching bands, clowns, drill teams, dog clubs, clowns, 4-H exhibits, more clowns, and, most important, floats.

People in Sequim love their floats. They’ll spend months converting an old hay truck into a thing of beauty with flowers, streamers, sparklers, and sometimes even moving parts. One year, there was a float that looked like a flower garden with a giant papier-mâché bumblebee chasing a papier-mâché butterfly. Unfortunately, that year a storm hit. By the time the float reached us, the bee looked more like a pile of runny dog poop and the butterfly had melted down into a pair of flyswatters sticking out of an old boot.

Personally, I’ve never found parade floats the least bit interesting. They seem to be more about celebrating the town’s royalty and carrying church groups singing “That Old-Time Religion” than about entertaining those of us under the age of sixty. Were I to see a float with live explosives on it or zombies rising from the dead, I might feel differently. But that never happens. For the most part, I just ignore them and focus on the good parts of the parade such as the cotton candy, the occasional clown tripping, and, well, mostly, the cotton candy.

At dinner, I did my best to respect my father’s wishes concerning secrecy. It wasn’t easy. Especially after he used the mashed potatoes, bratwurst, and string beans on his plate to build what looked like a miniature parade float.

“What are you doing?” my mother asked.

My father gave me a quick wink. “Oh, nothing. Just playing with my food.”

My brother stuck three beans in his mashed potatoes and began clubbing them with his bratwurst.

“I think it’s time the shop needs some new marketing,” my father said.

My mother directed my father’s attention to the slow death being inflicted on my brother’s green beans. “Do you see what he’s doing?”

“Don’t club your beans,” my father said.

“I’m playing with my food,” my brother replied, still clubbing his beans.

“Don’t play with your food,” my father said.

My brother crossed his arms. “It’s not fair.”

My father took a large bite out of what had been the bed of the trailer. “See? Just eat.” He speared another bratwurst from the serving platter. “I’m thinking of doing something that will really grab people’s attention.”

My mother’s eyes widened. “Does this have anything to do with that trailer?”

My father jammed the bratwurst slice into his mouth along with the last of the mashed potato wheels. “Now where would you get that idea?”

My mother shook her head. “Just promise me that trailer will not be used for anything other than hauling things.”

“You have my word,” he replied, almost too quickly.

My mother looked him up and down. “You better be telling the truth.”

“Scout’s honor,” he replied with a reassuring smile.

“You were never a scout.”

“Hmm,” my father murmured. “Ain’t that the truth.”