For many, Salinas' Kiddie Kapers parade is a family tradition

Caped superheroes astride caped hobby horses showed up at Saturday's Kiddie Kapers parade to "save the rodeo," according to their float, and thank goodness they were there.

The march, a tradition that originated in Salinas in 1911, came off without a hitch, entertaining hundreds of cheering spectators (some of whom set up their lawn chairs at 7 a.m.) along both sides of Main Street over an eight-block span.

The children were among 1,400 entrants in the parade, which kicks off the city's annual Rodeo Week celebrations.

"We've been doing this for about five years with my son, Isaiah, who is 6, but this is the first year for my other son, Isaac, who is 1," said proud dad Gerardo Landeros, who spent much of Friday assembling the locomotive that would carry his oldest boy. "My brother-in-law, a painter, did the design on the front, and I put it all together yesterday in a big hurry, at the last minute. I think the train kind of represents the wild, wild West, and I was pretty sure the kids were going to love it."

Not far away was 6-year-old Hennessy Brown ? "Miss Sunshine" ? in a pink cowboy hat and matching sunglasses, surrounded on her float by giant ice-cream cones, rainbows, hearts and kites.

"Our dog (a 6-year-old shi tzu named Da Vinci) won an award here a few years ago. We dressed him up as a sheriff and he danced and did little tricks for everybody," said Mona Lisa Brown, Hennessy's mom. "But this is the first time for my daughter, and

she's been pretty excited about it. She picked out the hat herself at the Boot Barn."

Kristi Thornton rode her bicycle in Kiddie Kapers when she was a child, wearing a cowboy hat and pink boots, but her husband, Dennis Bicek, was a rookie at Saturday's parade.

"We came here last year, but we were too late to get into the parade," he said. "So this year we planned in advance and this is what we came up with."

Bicek and his brother, Marty, and Thornton and her brother, Aaron, dressed up Blake and Brady Bicek, ages 8 and 9, as rodeo clowns and Morgan Bicek, 6, as a rodeo princess, propping them atop hay bales. Babies Addison Rae Bicek and Jack Thornton rode in the back with the "livestock."

Family ties are a strong thread at Kiddie Kapers, with an estimated 30,000 people participating over the years, including the great grandparents of 6-year-old Stefano Goldman, who dressed as a cowboy Saturday and rode on a float with a giant papier mache bull that was getting a sudsy bath.

"His great grandparents actually walked in this parade as little kids," said Chrissy Goldman, Stefano's mom. "I did, too, and my best memory was building my first papier mache cow and using surgical gloves for the udders. I was probably 12 years old then, and I couldn't wait to have my own kids so I could bring them to Kiddie Kapers."

Meanwhile, the Salinas School of Dance brought a contingent of 53 brightly costumed hoofers to tap dance along the route to four different cowboy tunes: "If You Want To Play In Texas," "Cotton-Eyed Joe," "Country Girl, Shake It For Me" and "Boot Scoot Boogie."

"This is our first time in the parade in 23 years," said Lisa Eisemann, owner of the studio and wife of Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter. "We've only had three rehearsals, but last night, during our final rehearsal, everybody just had boundless energy. The excitement level always increases when they put their costumes on, and this afternoon, when they all got changed, it was a madhouse."

For more information about Rodeo Week, see www.carodeo.com.

Dennis Taylor can be reached at 646-4344 or dtaylor@montereyherald.com.

Source: http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_23657467/many-salinas-kiddie-kapers-parade-is-family-tradition?source=rss_viewed

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