Opps Forgot Something

Feb 16th forgotten post


I forgot one of the most interesting things that happened during the parade.

One moment we were all watching that parade, waiting for something to appear in one of the gaps, and the next moment, there was a ripple that spread through the crowd. All heads turned south. Everyone.

I turned my head as well. People started shouting. Pointing. Parents grabbed their kids of the curb. A few people spun around and started running past me, panic in their eyes, on their faces.

What the hell?

Like an avalanche, the entire crowd broke and ran past me, a mob of frigthtened sheep and frightened they were. This was a human stampede.

I just stood there thinking, oh great, we’re all going to die and I have no idea what’s going to kill us. Tsunami? Fire? Runaway horses? Gunfire?

I did what any normal Canadian would have done. I readied my camera. In movie mode. I figured for the degree of panic, it would be fire or shooting, either way, it would make a great picture/movie for my blog and, worse case, I get shot or have to leap over the seawall onto the beach below and both those would make pretty good stories.

Damn, I tell you though, there is nothing like seeing hundreds of people run in one direction all full of fear and with very little concern for their fellow man. Never seen a mob mentality before, up close. It’s like we give off a pheromone or something and we got back to the scared little monkeys were once were and all head for the trees.

I kept looking, camera poised but nothing. Slowly the mob stopped running and regathered on the curbs again, everyone talking animatedly. Had I spoke the language, I would have known what had happened. As it was, I learned only today, the 19th. Some kids had faked gunfire with cans full of rocks and, in this town, when there is gunfire, you fucking run.

Good to know for the future.

(Dunno how I forgot about this whole thing, Joe Part 2 may be a bit of a sieve head).