Writes Brian Heyer:

I thought you might be encouraged by an on-the-ground report from a Depression-era spectacle. The Great Circus Parade was once an annual event in Milwaukee when the circus coming to town meant unique (and cheap) entertainment. Today tens of thousands of kids marveled at the cages of tigers and lions and the tall bandwagons -- with actual volunteer bands entertaining the crowds -- being pulled by 4-,6-,8-hitch teams of powerful draft horses. Or the tiny teams of miniature horses pulling "Cinderella," or the clown wagons. A score of elegantly dressed ladies riding sidesaddle. (Even Tucker would marvel at such high class!) Imagine the giggles when the line of trunk-to-tail elephants stop to relieve themselves simultaneously.

All of this being organized by volunteers and a minimum of paid philanthropic staff to provide free entertainment to at least a hundred thousand people lining the downtown. Many merchants, expecting little in sales from the cooler-equipped crowd, nonetheless opened doors before dawn on a Sunday to make their bathrooms available to those of us that wanted to get front-row seating. Inch by inch, families vied for the precious front row parade route sidewalk space, but peaceably kept the boundaries while chatting with strangers.

You can guess what would spoil such spontaneous magnificent cooperation. The armed police in mirrored sunglasses barking orders at the crowd in the empty street. Did they really ticket that guy for jaywalking? The phalanx of police Harleys, sirens blaring, leading the politicians' cars at the beginning of the parade. The meter maid waddling from car to car in a blighted, vacant gravel lot 1/2 mile from the route -- after the parade -- ticketing each for some unknowable yet revenue-worthy offense.

The only thing that would have made the parade more enjoyable was seeing the politicians in the cages, perhaps adjacent to the lions.