Last year at this time I wrote about our high school Homecoming and all its trimmings. But college Homecoming was in a whole different stratosphere—the big leagues.
I’d like to say that I remember the football game, but the only thing I remember were the huge mum corsages sporting pipe cleaner ISU letters on them for Indiana State University. I have no memory of the tricycle race or the Homecoming Dance, if there was one.
What I DO remember vividly are the floats our sorority created for the parade for two successive years. We prided ourselves on them and rightly so. The year seared in my brain is 1965. We came up with the idea of creating a replica of the Spirit of St. Louis and named it the Spirit of ISU. We worked for weeks constructing the frame for the plane and stapling sheets of frilled tissue paper onto chicken wire. Of course there were the usual staple gun mishaps, a few hammered thumbs and plenty of late nights.
Typically, a truck pulled each float, but as we had done the year before, we nailed 2’ x 4’s to the sides of the float bed, leaving room for people to walk INSIDE the float and push it. The judges were impressed to see the plane “floating” down the street with no visible means of transportation.
They knew there were several of us INSIDE, including yours truly, pushing the plane down the street. As I remember it was hellishly hot, so we all took off our blouses and were pushing away on those 2’ x 4’s as we sweat buckets. The pictures show the plane and the “French people” dancing around it, greeting its “arrival.” The judges awarded our float First Prize in the Sorority Division and also the GRAND PRIZE, even beating out the fraternities.
The previous year, 1964, we won the Sorority Division when we made a huge shoe with “children” hanging out various window, again pushed by girls hidden inside. The theme was “We’ll Lace ‘Em Up and Shoe ‘Em Away.”
Our experiences with those old school floats taught us to work together, even when we were tired or needed to study. We felt like modern versions of Rosie the Riveter. We DID it.
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