The lack of horses isn’t the only thing different about homecoming this year
It’s that nostalgic time of year for me, when I’m reminded of and immersed in tradition - and by immersed I’m talking about hundreds of pages of yearbooks from years gone by as part of my job this week.
It’s homecoming week, possibly the most tradition-steeped time in Iowa Park each year, and I’ve been witness to it and it’s evolving traditions more than 50 years.
My family moved to Iowa Park 51 years ago when I was a wee tot of only four. Being in the community newspaper business, we were immersed in everything Iowa Park from Day One (which I just made a proper noun). We experienced our first Iowa Park Homecoming the first month we were here. I think that qualifies me and my people homecoming veterans and pseudo-experts.
During my years here, I’ve watched florists make mums, only to adjust to their art form during the transition from fresh mums to fake ones, because nothing is better than dead flowers with streamers flowing off of it hanging from your teenage daughter’s bedroom wall for three years. It was a good change.
I’ve worked on floats for the annual homecoming parade when I was in school, and got to do it some more when my two kids walked the same halls, that incidentally smell like the most amazing yeast rolls every day at lunchtime.
Ironically, one of my standout memories of homecoming in Iowa Park happened the first year I was here. If I had ever been to a homecoming parade before, I don’t remember it. But there was no way I was going to forget Homecoming season in Iowa Park 1969.
Back then and for quite a while after, parades had floats that were worked on for months because they were made from chicken wire and green and white squares of tissue paper that were turned into works of art pulled behind a truck. There were funny cars, fire engines, bands and athletes. And there were horses in the parades. Lots of them. What a concept.
The next week, I went back to my pre-school and divulged to my classmates over a lunch of fish sticks served with the peas I wouldn’t eat that ..... “Horses pooped in the street last Friday, all over downtown.” I honestly don’t even think I used the adult terminology for that, although I don’t remember. By mid-afternoon word had gotten to the head lady about my story-telling, and I remember her taking me into a room, and telling me I had to be honest.
So, I agreed.
She asked me if I said horses had pooped in the streets. I was like, “Yeah! Weird, huh?” They weren’t amused and I had to take an extra long nap that day, a punishment I currently dream of receiving. I think my parents probably didn’t give me extra punishment because they were super tired from working 14-hour days at the newspaper.
Over the years, Hawk tradition has been the central theme, with some things fading away and other things replacing them. It’s not all bad, really.
I’ve seen the culinary advancement of roasted corn on the cob, thanks be to the FFA Booster Club and Carb Addicts Anonymous. Mums are still a thing, because we are in Texas, but thank God and warnings from chiropractors that mums that require a backhoe and staging area for a dressing roomhave fallen by the wayside. Back in my day, only the girls wore mums. Now, guys wear man-versions called a garter. They look nice, to be honest.
Green, black and metallic ribbons are tied in bows on whatever is standing still in Iowa Park that week. There are homecoming queens and courts, and pictures and videos.
We usually have bonfires that week, because we’re in Texas and when we’re excited we set dry pallets of wood on fire and chant. And just when we need to set things on fire – safely of course – Covid said nay. We resist our bonfires when we’re in a drought as well.
We are still having a our homecoming pep rally, but it will be held at 8:30 tonight (Thursday) in shiny, new Hawk Stadium, where it will be easier to socially distance, and a fiscally poor idea to set an acre of pallets ablaze on new turf. Instead, and I smell a new tradition here, we will be having fireworks. We will blow things up instead. A worthy replacement, I would say.
And probably because of me and my mouth, horses are no longer a feature in Iowa Park homecoming parades.
Then there’s Whoop-T-Do, that corny name for Iowa Park’s unique homecoming festival and we can’t help but love it. It’s ours. For the record, and research was done by the Leader staff for this, Whoop-T-Do actually began in Iowa Park in 1972, which means ... I’m older that WhoopT-Do.
Every year, Dutton Funeral Home sponsors the Turtle Trot to kick it off, and what follows is the ring toss, cake walk, sausage on a stick, funnel cakes, aforementioned deep fried corn on the cob, little dancers, bands, vendors, people painting children’s faces, dunking booth, and mums for days - all over downtown Iowa Park.
And the best part - the mini-reunions among those who came home, in the middle of these downtown streets we roamed growing up, and also the big reunions from classes who gather for their 10-year get-togethers. It is truly a time of communion in Iowa Park, and although a lot has changed, that has not.
We’re having the game and the horseless parade this year - see route details in the paper this week, they’ve changed. And with state guidelines on large gatherings, for the first time in 48 years, Iowa Park Whoop-T-Do has been cancelled.
This year it is certain that the only thing we can truly count on is that things are ever-changing, but the heart of Iowa Park’s tradition remains the same.
We are the town of Friendly Living.
We figure things out.
Tradition never graduates.
We take care of each other.
Go Hawks, and go Lady Hawks.
