Here's another golden oldie for you. It's amazing to see how far our floats have come in the last decade!
Back in 1998, we built a St. Patrick's Day float that replicated a Jimmy Buffett concert. Well, a Buffett concert in his early days, before he had much of a band or much of a crowd.
It was a chilly, rainy day on St. Patrick's day. We had a group of girls (and Garreth, long time bartender/manager) huddled in the back of the truck dancing to the music. The trailer we used was short by today's standards. We built a stage for "Jimmy" complete with tidal waves and backup dancers and palm trees.
We were shocked when Tyler, a bartender at the time and future Harvard law school graduate, agreed to be Jimmy Buffett. He was kind of a shy guy, but he lip-synced his way through the parade like a superstar.
We had some band members with actual instruments and hula girls dancing along with the music.
Doesn't the float look tiny?!?
This was also the first year we had a dog on board. We've had animals as part of the float before, but usually it's a camel or zebra or horse that walks in front of or behind the float. But this year, I'd adopted a puppy from Peach & Ted's dog's latest litter, and she was barely six weeks old. I didn't have a kennel for her yet, so she came along for the ride.
Maggie didn't like the puppy carrier, so we turned her loose in back of the truck. She promptly crawled into someone's duffel bag and curled up inside a sweatshirt and slept the entire parade route.
Does anyone remember this float, or any of our other older ones?
On March 12, 2006, a strange weather occurrence hit our fair city- the Great Microburst of 2006. It was like a tornado (and many people today still swear it actually was)- in fact, according that knower-of-all-things Wikipedia, the main difference between the two is that microbursts produce divergent winds, while tornadoes generally have convergent damage. Whatever. It’s still freaky-scary.
It was loud, it was windy, and trees and shingles and signs went flying all over town. According to KU Info, the University of Kansas campus lost 100 trees that day- but fortunately 29,425 trees remain.
We asked some of our Twitter followers what they remembered most about that day. Here’s what they had to say:
“It sounded like a train outside my house. I seriously thought I was in a tornado and going to die.”
“I was a freshman but had left for the weekend. Ended up getting caught in an even worse storm in Missouri: 2 tornadoes met right where I was.”
“Woke me up from a dead sleep. Lost part of my roof. Best part: no one was hurt, went outside, and found my house had the least damage around.”
“My boyfriend lived in Templin. His car window got broken out. I think some sort of heating/AC unit fell off the room of the dorm.”
“My boyfriend at the time was in town for our anniversary. The alarms went off in Ellsworth and we had to sit in the dorm basement.”
“All I could see was gray out the window. It sounded like a train.”
“I was a freshman and my pledge brother was driving a random shacker home and all of his windows instantly shattered as if a sign from God.” (OK, I laughed out loud at the random shacker part!)
“Worst memory: Being woken up by shingles being ripped off. Best memory: Getting a brand new roof.”
“Waking up to an uprooted tree hitting my window- and I lived on the 10th floor of Ellsworth Hall so that was definitely not normal!”
“Classes were cancelled the next day and it was like an all-campus party!”
“Lots of broken car windows and Weavers’ awning sitting in front of Liberty Hall.”
“Lived on the 4th floor above Pepperjax; looking down at New Hampshire street and seeing trees bent over to the ground.”
“Living in Corbin and I had to drive around for hours to charge my phone. Fast food lines were so long. No hot water for a week.”
“Seeing the clouds circling the McDonald’s on 6th Street when I lived a block from there.”
“Seeing part of a street sign off 6th from a place closer to Iowa than Mass lying in front of City Hall.”
“Waking up to violently shaking windows and our chimney being ripped off. Best part was joking about the apocalypse with my mom.”
“We lost two giant windows in our living room- they’re still not quite fixed!”
Lots of memories from this storm!
The Sandbar was fortunate to not have much damage. It seems like the downtown businesses on the east-west streets fared better than those on the north-south streets.
We were in the middle of construction on our annual St. Patrick’s Day float, and it lived in the vacant lot next to Dave’s house. Amazingly, the float had absolutely no damage- not even from the wind!
But about thirty feet away, a huge old tree right next to the house was completely uprooted and fell alongside the house. It took out a few shingles on the way down, but nothing major. If it had fallen at any more of a northern angle, it would have smashed into our bedroom (and probably taken me out!). We did get a new roof out of the deal.
We're interrupting the St. Patrick's Day love-fest to give you an update on our Walk MS team's efforts.
This week is MS Awareness Week. Over 400,000 people suffer from MS, and
another person is diagnosed every hour.
The Lawrence Walk MS is April 10- just under a month away. Right now we have 17 walkers signed up on our team and we've raised $1245, or 25% of our goal of $5000. The Sandbar also committed to a matching donation of up to $500, and we've obviously met that goal!
Check out our team page; it's not too late to sign up to walk or to donate. We'd really love it if you did both! And we'll have prizes again this week:
Make a donation to a team member
Sign up as a team member
Increase your number of donations this week, if you are already a team member
If you don't live near Lawrence, you can still participate as a virtual team member. Raise at least $50 and we'll mail a Sandbar t-shirt to you.
Random prize drawings will take place next Sunday!
It was so much fun reminiscing yesterday about our St. Patrick's Day float from 1997, we thought we'd share some other float memories the rest of the week. After all, St. Patrick's Day is one of our all-time favorite subjects!
Back in 2000, we built a pirate ship. That's probably one of the most expected floats we could build, and in fact we've build all kinds of variations of boats and ships through the years. This float was special for many reasons.
The pirate ship was long-time Friday bartender Heather's first float. In fact, it was her first real Sandbar experience. She didn't work here yet, but she'd been visiting the Sandbar and befriended Phil, who invited her to be on the float. Everyone loved her (of course!) and when Dave had an open shift she filled it, and the rest is history.
Another unique part of this float: rollerblading sharks. This was our future art director and his wife's first Sandbar float also. They volunteered to wear sharks on their helmets and rollerblade alongside the float, like sharks circling the ship. Both of them were exhausted the next day. We've never had rollerblading participants again, either.
We had pirates and wenches and cannons that shot puffs of air out the side of the ship. It was a big float compared to the ones we'd previously built…but it was only a sign of what was still to come.
In honor of our upcoming favorite holiday of the year, here's the story behind one of pictures nailed to our wall.
St. Patrick's Day, 1997. The float theme was "Under the Sea" and we built a giant aquarium. By 1997 standards it seemed huge and elaborate; by today's standards, not so much.
Doorboy Andrew was a wee little thing back then. He was a scuba diver on the float. What this really meant: he was suspended in mid-air in the "aquarium." Dave was a giant red lobster. There were mermaids and sea creatures and King Neptune.
And a zebra.
Peach and Ted had started acquiring their various exotic animals, and the zebra deserved a place of honor in the parade even though she didn't fit the theme at all. Peach and several other staff members walked alongside the float, decked out in Hawaiian shirts and beachcomber hats, and the zebra walked with them.
This picture features Cheryl, one of the first and only doorgirls (she kept the Tuesday night crowd in line- literally); Peach; the zebra; Ted's daughter Betsy, and little Andrew. Wasn't he cute?
This picture hangs near the front door. Check it out next time you're in the bar. Oh, and notice the old white paint on the building, and the palm trees that used to adorn the old windows!
