Leader of the pack
The Portland Rose Festival Committee announced today that the inaugural version of the new, combined Grand Floral and Starlight Parades will feature Stenchy, the Portland food slop composting rat, as the grand marshal.
The supersized rodent, who achieved star status with the advent of food waste composting in Portland in 2011, will lead a group of international celebrities who will be on hand to celebrate the new parade format when it debuts on June 6. The festival's promoters say that this year’s theme — Imagine Magic — will dazzle new visitors and reignite the wonder for those returning after years away.
Stenchy's triumphant return will end an absence on the local scene that started with the advent of the Covid pandemic in 2020. When the virus hit, the beloved rat moved to the massive commercial landfill in Arlington, Oregon, to which Portland's household garbage is shipped. In his new location, Stenchy has opened a number of "rat-irement" communities, known as "Green Bin-Villes," for aging muroids seeking an active lifestyle.
According to Stenchy's publicists, he's looking forward to returning to the scene of his heyday. "It's been Fat City out in Arlington," said spokesman Pat Reynolds, "but he misses his glory days of skittering back and forth through Buckman and Kerns on those hot summer nights, looking for that one food scrap bucket with its lid slightly open."
Opening night and fireworks start May 22 with CityFair, and wrap up two and a half weeks later with the parade. The buzz among Stenchy fans is the rumor of an after-party at an Old Town dumpster to be named later this winter.
Yeah for Stenchy! Nothing like combining the parades to show Portland's on the way back and it's safe to parade around at night downtown.
ReplyDeleteMy dad, a Grant High alum and jock, was captivated by the Kon-Tiki adventure, where they built a raft out of native materials in Peru and sailed to Polynesia and back. Interesting how now they are begrudgingly admitting that people did cross the ocean to get to South America instead of only from the Siberian land bridge. Anyway, we built a Kon-Tiki raft float and participated in the Children's parade on Sandy blvd. Good times. Dad was always a kid to his final breath.