Wise Woman Travel

Exploring the world from a female perspective

Of bonnets and sonnets and Easter parades

April 21, 2014

It’s hard to remember now when crowded streets brought joy rather than anxiety.

Thanks goodness for photos and blog posts.

Seven years ago, my friend Angela and I headed out on a warm Easter Sunday afternoon to mingle with other Easter bonnet revelers on 5th Avenue, to see and be seen. Here’s my record of that experience, with wishes for the return of the Easter parade and a happy Easter to those of you who observe it.

New York City’s Easter Parade down 5th Avenue is more than a hundred years old. It has evolved from its late 19th century elegance to its current incarnation – a 10-block promenade where the cute and the zany, the heartwarming and the gawdy, the innovative and the traditional compete for the attention of onlookers, photographers, and other participants. It is five hours of smiling, good-natured fun that needs only a few lyrics from Irving Berlin to accompany it and no further commentary from me.

In your Easter bonnet

In your Easter bonnet

With all the frills upon it

With all the frills upon it

You'll be the grandest lady

You’ll be the grandest lady

In the Easter parade

In the Easter parade

I'll be all in clover

I’ll be all in clover

'Cause when they look you over

‘Cause when they look you over

I'll be the proudest fella

I’ll be the proudest fella

In the Easter parade

In the Easter parade

On the Avenue

On the Avenue

Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue

The photographers will snap us

The photographers will snap us

And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure

And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure

Oh, I could write a sonnet

Oh, I could write a sonnet

About your Easter bonnet

About your Easter bonnet

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And of the girl I’m taking

To the Easter parade!

To the Easter parade!

6 thoughts on “Of bonnets and sonnets and Easter parades

  1. Debbie says:

    And just look at you two “stylin mammas”

    Like

  2. Pamela Young says:

    It helped that Angela wears hats to synagogue every Saturday!

    Like

  3. Amy says:

    Lovely Easter parade! Thanks for sharing a litle bit of New York with us.

    Like

  4. Pamela Young says:

    You’re welcome! I think Edmonton needs a similar event.

    Like

  5. Admirable, witty photo-poem

    Like

    1. Pamela Young says:

      Thanks, Andrzej. It was a fun event, and just as much fun to put together as a photo-poem. I might try more of this style of post in the future.

      Like

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