By Meghan Boucher
This year’s 98th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was rainy and dreary, but that didn’t stop performers from around the country from marching through New York City. The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s own Minutemen marching band took the parade route for the first time in over ten years. While the parade is known for its floats and giant balloons for Michael Gifford, a junior trombonist with the marching band, it’s the music that brings it all together.
“Music just has a certain quality to it. It can lift everything and it’s so powerful. And I think being able to perform, and bring music to a parade…We get to share our enthusiasm and we get to bring joy to everyone who hears,” said Gifford.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The weather caused some timing delays leaving the Minutemen running down the parade route to hit their mark on the iconic star outside Macy’s.
Despite the setbacks, the band persevered. Hannah Morehouse, a sophomore flutist, said her memories of the trip are far more than the parade itself.
“I’m really glad I got to have the experience. I am upset that we all got off the star feeling like it wasn’t our best performance…but I’m excited that I actually got to be a part of it and we did so much more than perform on the star. I got to make a lot of memories which were really special,” said Morehouse.
Preparing for the parade was no easy task. The Minutemen's regular season was already plenty full of football games and impromptu performances, but according to senior Aidan Beckman, they took on the challenge happily.
“We were ready for it. We were ready to take it on. And we were ready to do it our way.”
And for Beckman, his memories of the day don’t belong to the star, but to the city of New York.
“Those two and a half miles through the city…you have that audience right there in front of you, it's not just a camera…Forget the TV audience, the in-person audience throughout that pouring rain was just purely amazing.”
