Best ever? You decide

For as long as this 72-year-old writer can recall, it’s been a tradition for the Record’s editor to annually proclaim each Old Settlers Day the best ever.

That might be a challenge.

Forty years ago, as this week’s Memories column reports, an estimated 10,000 people viewed the parade. That might seem a generous estimate, but it followed established procedures for estimating crowds.

This year, physically counting several blocks worth of spectators yielded a crowd estimate for the entire route of closer to 1,000, less unless you counted people riding in the parade as well.

Many years, Central Park has been crowded — and not just with kids playing games — until well into the afternoon. Whole classes showed up to be recognized at what then was a park gazebo, now replaced by a stone stage.

Sixty years ago, bands and floats were much more numerous. Every town in the county sent one or more school bands. Floats took weeks to prepare and were completely skirted — typically with napkins painstakingly stuck into chicken wire that fully hid that the floats were hay wagons at their core.

Still, one thing hasn’t changed since Old Settlers began 114 years ago. It’s still a time to renew acquaintances and revel in memories that are celebrated only every 5, 10, 25, 50, or more years.

Being able to enjoy one more moment with people who were central to our sheltered existence before any of us ventured into the wider world is what makes Old Settlers special.

Yes, you have to deal with people you haven’t seen in decades who insist you have to guess who they are — as if no one changes after age 18. Yes, you get to see hairlines that have receded, waistlines that have expanded, more gray than a reservoir of dye could cover, and once in a while a handsome swan who used to be an ugly duckling, or occasionally vice versa.

That’s the vicarious entertainment value created by everyone at least briefly coming together to reconstitute the community that gave them their start. It’s what’s shared in that rekindling of the home fires that makes each year’s — and this year’s — Old Settlers the best ever.

— ERIC MEYER