Dale Edwards, June 1, 2010

It seems that the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival parade is becoming a jinx for the Lizziers. Of the nine cars that started the parade, three had to be towed/ pushed across the finish line this year due to various fuel-related problems. The throttle linkage on Bill Walls car came loose about half way through the parade and he had to be pushed to the end by Larry Collins. Ed Robert’s old reliable Lizzie developed a fuel system leak and he ran out of gas about three-quarters of the way down the parade route. And my Lizzie had another reoccurrence of that pesky fuel blockage problem that first happened in the Tustin Tiller parade earlier this year and I had to be towed to the finish line by Captain John Edgmon. Last year in this parade, three out of eleven Lizzies also had problems, more than in any other parade besides this one. This included broken axle bolts, tire problems, and balky engines. I guess the Lizzies are allergic to Strawberries.

But all those problems were quickly forgotten as we gathered after the parade at Captain John and Judy Edgmon’s home and bellied up to a feast of hamburgers, hot dogs, salads and liquid refreshments. Besides most of the parade participants, we were joined at the after-party by several of our currently less active members, including Jerry and Sandy Murphy (who also sidelined at the parade) and John and Betty Rowe, and Joe and Rose Miranda.

One item that doesn’t seem quite fair is that we had two “Student Drivers” in this Strawberry Festival Parade and neither one of them got into any trouble or had any problems. One was Nick Villasensor who played it real cool and says he had a great time. The other rookie was Coy Love P.P. who said driving a Lizzie was a whole lot more fun than riding passively in a Chariot. Coy was even the one who pushed Ed Roberts to the parade finish after he ran out of gas, so Coy was pretty proud of himself. But he also said there was more work in loading and unloading from the trailers than he was accustomed to. And he agrees with us that driving a Lizzie in a parade can be lots of fun, especially if you don’t have any problems.

So if you don’t currently belong to an El Bekal parade unit, you too can put some fun in your life. We have Lizzie vehicles available and open slots in our roster so just call our Captain, John Edgmon at (714) 639-0337 or our Lieutenant, Rick Meadows at (714) 534-5036 to join the fun.