By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Yachats celebrated community on the nation’s Fourth of July holiday by eating pancakes and pie, marching in or watching an oceanside parade, then topping it off with fireworks at dusk.
“It’s a throwback to the 1950s,” said Jenica McKay of Portland, who for years has rented a house in town with five other women – sisters, aunt and partners – for the week. “We’ve been in love with Yachats for years. And the parade – we get it.”
The la de da Parade – there are officially no capital letters in the first three words – is the big mid-day draw to town. Spectators – many dressed in red, white and blue for the occasion — lined West Seventh Street and Ocean View Drive.
The low-key parade is open to anyone, and for the first time allowed two motorized vehicles other than the fire department’s ambulance and engine. There were groups with Border collies, costumed families dancing to music, women in antique dresses, trail volunteers covered in ivy and, of course, the umbrella drill team.
Parade organizer Scott Gay, manager of the C&K Market, said 30 groups signed up for the parade and more than seven just showed up before its noon start. He’s cool with that.
“As I tell people, it’s the la de da Parade,” he laughed. “Just get in line, respect everyone and have fun.”
It may also be the only parade in Oregon that features the City Council riding in a manure spreader.
Tom Hagg, from left, Lori Stevens, Marilyn Hunter and Muriel Ruud watch the la de da Parade from their seats along Ocean View Drive. The four have been friends since their parents bought homes on Chipmunk Drive north of Yachats in 1955 — and where they now all live. “It’s like going back in time,” Stevens said of the community celebration.
For 16 years a longtime group of friends led by Lori Stevens and her husband, Tom Hagg, sat along Ocean View and performed impromptu judging of parade participants. But this year they had no judge signs to hold up because they were lost in the chaos of a house remodel.
“We couldn’t find our stuff to save our lives,” Stevens said.
The first big event of the day was the Lions Club all-you-can eat pancake breakfast. After disappointing turnouts at Memorial Day and Spring Break breakfasts, big crowds nearly overwhelmed the event Thursday.
Edwena Matychuck was cooking pancakes as fast as she could to help keep a long line moving. Matychuck is the mother of Lions past president David O’Kelley and was president herself in 2009-10. She moved to Eugene four years ago, but still comes over to help cook breakfasts.
“I do this because I love Yachats and love the Lions,” she said. “I’ve done this for lots and lots of years. It’s hard to move away.”
Phillip and Rachael Day drive from Salt Lake City each year to spend the holiday in Yachats. Rachael Day said she came to Yachats as a child; now she’s introducing her two daughters to the area.
“We collect agates, look at tide pools, go to Newport and Florence,” she said. “We do everything.”
Crowds similarly jammed – the line stretched around the main room, out the door and down the street – at the Yachats Ladies Club for its pie and ice cream social.
There was a line waiting for the doors to open at 10 a.m.
Members – there about 25 active ones – made 125 pies (that’s 875 slices!) and six sheets of brownies.
Club treasurer Gunnell Nelson said it’s the club’s biggest fundraiser of the year – and because it’s July 4th, also the craziest.
“We’ll probably sell out by noon,” she said.
She was off by 40 minutes.
