Stefan Pollack stands on the corner of Avenida Padilla in Irwindale, eyes peeled for a Rose Parade float. Yes, it’s only Dec. 2, but Pollack doesn’t need to check his calendar.
This is the weekend the painstaking operation to test and decorate the 30 or so floats kicks into high gear for the 135th Rose Parade.
“If you’re building a house, you have a building inspection, to make sure all the wiring is all built to spec before you paint and frame over things,” Pollack said. “All this is about safety and preparedness.”
As president and chief financial officer of the public relations agency The Pollack Group, he’s on hand to help inspectors from the Tournament of Roses Association do their thing.
“I’ve been doing this 21 years and it’s fun,” Pollack said. “TV is a wonderful medium, but nothing replaces seeing all this in person.”
Bill Winslow of Rancho Cucamonga stands with his clipboard, checking items off as he looks over the One Legacy float. A third-generation Tournament of Roses member, Winslow’s grandfather Harry Hurry served as president of the Tournament of Roses in 1954.
On this, his 44th year volunteering for the rosy corps, Winslow is on the Float Entries Committee, showing a newbie member the ropes. He oversaw the required fire drill, making sure float riders and operators, if need be, can safely exit the float in 45 seconds.
“I was 23 when I joined, and it still is fun to do,” he said. “It’s sharing that joy on parade day when people say thank you and you see everyone enjoys it. It’s not work.”
Or at the very least, it is, as everyone on float decorating duty says, a labor of fun.
Every year, service clubs, school groups, businesses and municipalities send volunteers to decorate floats. At Phoenix Decorating Company in Irwindale, the first day of dry decorating opened with a rush, but soon settled into an organized hum of activity.
Phoenix staff shepherded volunteers and trained them in handling the salad that is Rose Parade dry decorations: chopping, cutting, sponging thousands of natural materials. There’s parsley, white beans, coffee grounds (Folgers in their cups), cinnamon, corn husks, seeds of all types, from sesame to cranberry, rice in various incarnations, farina, cress, star pine and purple statice.
Madelyn Soto, 16, junior at Montclair High School, was cutting the lavender mini-blooms from its stems with her mom Laura and aunt Sylvia Meza of Whittier. All three were volunteering for the first time.
“We’re a part of Southern California history, loving the Rose Parade is part of growing up in Southern California, so it’s great to be part of such a big event that’s seen around the world,’ Sylvia Meza said.
And yes, the warehouse is cold, and one must carefully cut so that none of the green stem comes away with the purple petals. Sitting too long can bring on a backache. But the women were all in.
“This is a competition, and a float costs a lot of money, so if I don’t do a good job, they can throw away all my hard work,” Meza said.
Adolph Garcia of West Covina guards the entry to Phoenix, where 23 floats are being built. He said in the decorating frenzy between Dec. 26-31, about 3,000 people a day come through.
Garcia has been into Rose Parade float preps for 40 years, driving floats for 13.
“Every year I say it’s the last year, and come September, I drop by after work and decide to come back again,” the volunteer said. “I’m here for the fun and this is my December family.”
Mercedes Lomeli, 17, of Temescal Canyon High said it’s a family tradition to watch the Rose Parade while gathered on the couch at home. This year, she may get shushed because she will point out her handiwork on the One Legacy float.
“I can say, ‘See those butterfly wings, I did that, and over there, I did that,’” she said. “I’ll be part of this tradition.”
Kelly Wu, 17, a senior at South Hills High School in Covina, glued yellow and purple petals to oversized paper light bulbs, part of a float depicting the city of Newport Beach’s Christmas boat parade. It will be the longest multi-piece float in the history of the Rose Parade.
“This is my second year volunteering and I love the interactions I get,” Wu said. “I get to be creative, and it’s fun. I can never watch the parade the same way again.”
Lee Lindley, 72, of Long Beach, first volunteered for the Pasadena institution 24 years ago, when she worked on the IBM float.
“I absolutely fell in love with it and when I retired, I knew I wanted to do it again,” she said.
She and her husband Ruben, 86, are details specialists, poring over intricate designs with tweezers and paintbrushes.
“I’m a numbers person and this gives me an opportunity to be creative as an arts wannabe,” Lindley said. “It takes patience and perseverance.”
Come New Year’s Day, though, the couple will be far away from Pasadena.
“We watch from home because we’re exhausted, then on Jan. 2 we go, ‘Ooh 11 more months and we get to do this again.”