The other evening, deep into January, I spotted some holiday decor I’d failed to stash away: a set of cheap fans. For several weeks this winter, the fans kept strange company with the ornament-heavy boughs in our living room. Now they served as a last reminder of when we measured our days by counting them down to the Rose Parade in Pasadena.
My husband and I had deployed the fans to dry out my son’s white marching shoes. They were coming home soaked, rehearsal after rehearsal, thanks to Southern California’s record-breaking rain. We’d place the shoes on TV trays and prop them open with chopsticks to let the air in, then set the fans on full blast overnight.
With the parade now a memory, I finally unplugged the fans, wrapped their cords around their bases, and put them in the closet, closing the door on my first official season as a band mom.
The Pasadena City College (PCC) Tournament of Roses Honor Band has been a fixture of the world’s greatest parade for nearly a century. It was one of 19 bands to perform at this year’s fete, a New Year’s Day tradition since 1890, between over-the-top flower-draped floats with animatronics that are marvels of engineering. Upwards of 700,000 people line the route—many in town for the Rose Bowl football game, which takes place in Pasadena later in the afternoon—and tens of millions watch on television.
My son, Isaac, a second-year music major at PCC, earned a spot in the Honor Band as a percussionist, one of 225 marchers selected out of the 500 local college and high school students who’d auditioned. The previous year, he’d opted out of auditioning after hearing about the demands: more than a hundred hours of rehearsal and endless miles of marching to prepare for the five and a half they would be walking on parade day.
This time, Isaac’s confidence was up. He has mild autism, and the professors in PCC’s music department have been incredibly supportive, pushing him artistically and also patient with the curveballs he can send their way. (First line of his college essay: “Music is my first language. English is more like my second language.”) He got a boost in June, when he won the school’s percussion ensemble award, the only time it had gone to a first-year student.
After making the Honor Band in October, he texted what seemed like every person he has ever met, including second cousins we hadn’t talked to in years. People replied what a bucket-list topper it must be to perform in the Rose Parade. Huzzah!
Auditions over, the grind began: rehearsals from early November through show day, traversing acres of asphalt parking lots surrounding Santa Anita Park and Dodger Stadium, learning to keep time, stay in line, and hold tight to instruments made slippier by the rain. I have a theater background but quickly realized this wasn’t about putting on a show so much as training for an iron man competition while also wearing flamboyant hats.
One Sunday early on, I picked Isaac up from rehearsal at PCC and he told me he wanted to quit. He was struggling to stay in step while also staying in line. He’d been chosen to play the xylophone, and the strain of carrying an instrument that weighed around 20 pounds for so many cumulative miles, back brace or not, was enormous. My husband and I gave him a pep talk and said we’d all train together.
The next morning, Isaac filled his backpack with books, strapped it to his chest, and we marched up and down our hilly neighborhood as I tried to remember the lyrics to “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (the Honor Band’s signature song).
Over Thanksgiving break, Isaac brought the xylophone home, practicing daily in the living room or yard, marching in time as he played. Wrangling it through the hall one afternoon, he scraped the wall, knocking off a large framed collage of photographs (of himself, no less). The black mark left behind will remain a battle scar.
Slowly, Isaac became accustomed to the rhythm of the days, each rehearsal a stepping stone to the next. The uniform gave him another boost: He’d never worn epaulets before! He was suited up in a tomato-red wool jacket with big brass buttons and emblazoned with a signature rose, his head topped by a delightful shako—those military hats with gilded brims. “I didn’t know I’d get a feather!” he told me when he learned the hats would be festooned with a plume.
The underclothes, however, proved sources of stress to mom. Good luck trying to find a pair of logo-free socks and boxers nowadays (no free plugs for Adidas or Nike allowed at the Rose Parade!). There were compression shorts and wristbands and white T-shirts that needed to somehow stay white. During crunch time, a blur of daily rehearsals and daily washings, I’d wake in the night, panic-wondering if I’d remembered to hang absolutely every last thing to dry.
In the evenings, as parents waited in their cars at PCC, some having driven much farther than our eight miles, the parking lots would start to buzz as hundreds of rain-soaked, bone-weary kids poured into the garage, stumbling past our headlights, schlepping gear after another eight-hour day. One night less than a week before the parade, Isaac threw his pack in the back seat and turned to me.
“I am the happiest I’ve been in years!” he burst out, settling into his seat. “Today, I learned how to march in line!”
On New Year’s Eve, Isaac hit bed early. My husband and I did not. My elderly mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital at 11:30 p.m. after a fall (she was OK, and Ed made it back for the parade), and the pounding rain and exploding fireworks set off our cat. I made Isaac a breakfast sandwich at 2:30 a.m., and we drove through the puddles and splatter to his 3 a.m. call time, the city gleaming under a noir sheen of reflected light.
A few hours later, I was back on those same streets, taking my seat in a wet folding chair set out by a friend of a friend on Colorado Boulevard. A note, should you find yourself in a similar situation: Don’t wear jeans to a parade during a torrential rainstorm.
As for that rain—folks, it was relentless. Normally, I welcome any deluge in Los Angeles, but as parade day approached and it became clear there’d be no reprieve, I had gotten the jitters. Would Isaac’s anxiety spike? Would marching for miles in fogged-up glasses and soggy shoes be too “nervousing,” as he puts it?
He told me when I dropped him off that morning that the rain didn’t concern him. With the professionalism of a seasoned pro, he said they’d rehearsed in downpours and knew what to expect. What he was nervousing about, he said, was that millions of people were going to be watching him on television.
Oh, and the parade itself? The rain didn’t dampen the olfactory treat of the roses. From the curb, I became a shouting fangirl, giving it up for the flag teams, the floats, the spectacle. But mostly, I was keeping an eye out for my son’s approach.
We heard the PCC Herald Trumpets first. An elite group whom I liken to musical Navy SEALs, they escort the Rose Queen and her court (and, yes, this still happens in the year 2026, and I am here for it). Then came the Honor Band.
The rain was still falling. Their sharp uniforms were covered in clear ponchos like Saran Wrap, and they’d been forced to switch out shakos for baseball caps. But move with purpose they did (they are a marching band, after all). We looked down a row and caught a glimpse of our mallet-hammering xylophonist. I shouted, but not like I did for the floats. I didn’t want to distract Isaac, though I don’t think anything could have. His focus was absolute. Shako or no shako, he was now part of a landmark tradition in Southern California.
His percussion director, Tad Carpenter, marched alongside the band. I gave Tad the biggest smile, possibly a hug (I was so delirious I can’t remember), and many quick thank you thank you thank yous for being such a champion of Isaac’s, and for all he has done for so many young marchers over the years.
A few days after New Year’s, this time in waterproof pants, we watched Isaac bang out arpeggios as the Honor Band snaked its way through Disneyland, a half-mile coda to the parade, in a place that has always meant so much to our family. (Each year, the park invites a handful of Rose Parade bands to perform.)
The drive home was tough. Isaac had just learned that after spring semester, Tad will be retiring after 24 years at PCC. Isaac told us he didn’t want to do the parade next year without his beloved mentor. There were tears and big feelings. We also knew our son was completely spent, emotionally and physically.
We told him that time is a funny thing. He may feel different next year, when he meets the new percussion director. Or he may decide that 100 hours of rehearsal and miles of marching aren’t how he wants to spend his entire Christmas vacation again.
Either way, the fans are on standby.•
Mary Melton is Alta’s editor at large. She is editorial director at Godfrey Dadich Partners and the former editor in chief of Los Angeles magazine.
