The phrase Where’s Waldo generally conjures searching for Waldo within a crowd favoring red and white striped garb. Not so for me this year. We have been running a Find Waldo Local event since they began, making this our sixth year, and I find myself looking for Waldo not in the pages of a book, but in our photo archives as I recollect all the DDG Waldos to wear the stripes. This is particularly true as July 4th rolls around. Our Waldo always marches in the Farmington July 4th parade. In fact we have two 2nd place ribbons to our credit. The parade is an awesome vehicle for distributing the passports. The DDG Waldo works the crowd, handing out hundreds of passports to the children lining the parade route, and does so in high style as our ribbons attest.
Yet the parade is just one of three DDG Waldo aspects. There is also July 31st party Waldo and around town delivering search items and collecting prizes from participating downtown merchants Waldo. Here then are our Where’s Waldos past and present.
Here is our first Waldo getting ready for the parade. It is none other than my son Reid, a formidable Waldo indeed.
Here is Reid greeting some partygoers. He was a ribbon winner of course. Let me note here too that the shirt, hat and glasses seen in all these picture is the original Where’s Waldo local shirt and hat, sent to me by my bookselling buddy Carol Chittenden who created this shop local idea originally. It was was subsequently adopted by Candlewick but before it went national Carol had sent me all her garb and passport materials with the idea that I would try it out as she had done.
Reid’s departure left a gaping hole and it was I who stepped into the breech, donning the stripes in 2014 as both a party and around town Waldo.
This picture takes Where’s Waldo to a new place. Sam won our second 2nd place ribbon playing Waldo in the parade but I couldn’t find a picture of him in Waldo garb anywhere after a considerable, but apropos, search.
Our next Waldo was Elliott, a superb party Waldo, but he is not inclined to the parade. You can see the reason for his party excellence below.
That’s right – no one can outdo Elliott for Waldo photobombing.
Parade duties were taken up by young Evan, the son of my awesome assistant Karin.
Evan does make a fine party Waldo too!
This year is the year of Wenda and you can guess what that means. Karin takes a deep breath…
And “Wenda” takes the 2017 Farmington July 4th parade plunge in high style, handing out more than 350 passports!