To this day, whenever I smell large quantities of flowers in one place, it takes me right back that experience. There would be as many floats as they could shove in a building where the temperature could vary 50 degrees from the back of the building to the front. Decorating floats is all about glue.
First, there is a long tack that has to be put on every part of the float. Then a short tack (very sticky) is used to hold the different flowers and substances in place. Most of our “hot chocolate breaks” involved having to physically remove the glue brush that is permanently attached to one’s hand.
If you got it in your hair, you just had to cut it out. One time, I did see an entire bucket of glue spilled on a girl’s head. Yes, I felt bad, but it did make me laugh. She wasn't from our group so I don't know how they ever got that mess out of her hair.
Here is the irony. One year, we were decorating a float for the City of Hope. The float featured a doctor sitting at his desk. He had a little girl sitting on his lap, and he was fixing her doll.
I and two other kids were standing on the doctor’s desk putting cabbage leaves on the books. Every once in awhile, a guy would walk across the desk. We told him not to do it since the floor would flex when he did. This didn't stop him, of course, (after all we were just kids, so what did we know) and a few minutes later the floor went out from under us and we all fell into the engine.
They had to tear down part of the float just to get us out. We all survived with just a few major bruises and a newfound fear of cabbage leaves.
Fast forward quite a few years. I arrive at the City of Hope for the treatment of my breast cancer. The City of Hope is a huge place. They call it a campus for a reason.
There are 50 buildings and the main one is an architect's nightmare of a maze. Maybe there are so many corridors going in every different direction just so there are more places to put artwork. (It’s an artist’s dream.) So, while completely lost trying to find the right elevator to get to oncology, I pretty well toured most of those corridors on my first visit.
While coming around one of the corners, I found photos of all the floats they've ever done, and there it was: the float that I had helped build all those years ago. Talk about a full circle!
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