Holiday binge-buying has deep roots in American culture: department stores have been associating turkey gluttony with its spending equivalent since they began sponsoring Thanksgiving Day parades in the early 20th century.
While there are towns and cities still planning Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some think the day is for honoring anyone who has died, not just those fallen in service to our country.
In the poetry of immigrants, nostalgia is as common as confetti at parades or platitudes at political conventions.
We see North Koreans as automatons, goose-steeping at parades, doing mass gymnastics with fixed smiles on their faces - but beneath all that, real life goes on with the same complexity of human emotion as anywhere else.
According to tarot historian Gertrude Moakley, the cards' fanciful images - from the Fool to Death - were inspired by the costumed figures who participated in carnival parades.
When I've ridden in parades, I always throw to the kids, the elderly and anyone who is smiling and having a great time. I try to make eye contact with the person. If you catch a ton and a kid nearby hasn't caught much, share.
Most of the stuff that parades as drug education in this country is just rubbish with no foundation in evidence.
I can't stop being in parades. I just love dancing on floats that move really slowly on the city streets in the early morning.
Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for.
People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time. We do a lot of things in our society that are simply symbolic.
