Some may see it as chaos with a funny name, but Delaware calls it a New Year’s Day parade.
Thousands of people will be showing up on the streets of Middletown, Del., New Year’s Day to participate in the Hummers Parade – the parade with no rules, no organization and led by whoever wakes up from their hangover that day.
The annual event, which began in 1970, is a hilarious, disorganized, almost-anything-goes parody of Philadelphia’s Mummer’s Day Parade. As many as 10,000 people show up wearing whatever they want, floating whatever they want, and waving whatever they want, according to delawareonline.com.
Legend has it, the late 1 p.m. start to the parade is catered to the idea that participants need time to recover from their New Year’s Eve activities and then throw together any madness they’re foggy-headed morning leads them to.
And yet unlike the carefully planned Mummer’s Day Parade, in which paraders openly drink while marching, the jolly Hummers are not allowed to publicly drink. Drugs, obscenity and motorized vehicles are also banned.
The rain-or-shine event has featured lawn chair drill teams, rollerskating grand marshals, and costumes mocking and lauding the year’s news and newsmakers.
But nobody knows what’s going to happen—and that’s the point.
