Ricky is a young boy with big dreams and exciting ideas, he is 9, and lives in the small town of Lamont,WI. One day he and his two brothers Robby and Jamie, and sister Gina were playing “Parade”, and Ricky said “we should have a parade here in Lamont”. Ricky’s older brother Robby said “no one would come, there are not enough people in this town”. Ricky could already see the whole parade in his head, so he thought the next step would be to talk to his parents.

That very same evening at dinner Ricky said “Mom, Dad, do you think we could have a parade here, like all the bigger towns do?” his parents looked at each other in amusement at first, and Ricky’s mother said “well, guess you would have to talk to the mayor about that.” The next morning Ricky and his brother’s road their bikes to the mayors farm, the mayor is a farmer and his name is Paul Wilson. They knocked on the door, Paul answered the door and Ricky said “Paul, do you think we could have a parade here like all the bigger towns do?” and Paul smiled and said “well, i don’t know Ricky, no one has ever asked about having a parade before, but you know we have the church’s chicken barbeque coming up , let me look into it for you.” Ricky and his brothers were very excited, and thanked Paul, and headed home on their bikes.

That afternoon Mr. Wilson called Ricky’s mom and said he talked to some of the others in town and they thought it would be a nice idea to have a parade in Lamont. Ricky’s mom hung up the phone a little suprised and said “Ricky you got your parade, but now we have alot of work to do”. So Ricky’s mom got busy making phone calls to all the local fire departments, and elected officials, and others that might be interested in entering the first ever Lamont Chicken Barbeque Parade, she also told them all that a little boy named Ricky was the one who came up with the idea, and most of them laughed and “we wouldn’t miss it for the world”.

Two weeks later, at 9:30am people started lining up at Paul Wilson’s farm for the parade, Ricky’s brothers and sister and all the town kids decorated their bikes to ride in the parade, Ricky and his dad rode their horses in the parade, the whole town was shocked at the turn out, there were people there from all over the county, Fire trucks, police cars, a marching band, clowns, elected officials, floats, it was everything my little brother Ricky ever wanted, and he got it, the people of Lamont and surrounding communities, gave a little boy his biggest memory as a child…

That evening at dinner everyone was happy, Mom was getting the dinner off the stove, and us kids were seated at the table with Dad, and Ricky said, “Mom, Dad, do you think i could ride my horse in the race at the Fair”? But that is another true story, i’ll share it with you later.