An estimated 700,000 people attended the Seahawks celebration yesterday. That’s more people than the population of the City of Seattle. The boss closed the office from 1030 until the end parade passed. My coworker and I followed four others to the other side of 4th Avenue, and we went to the 3rd level of a parking structure. (One of the employees had a monthly parking permit.) The good news is that we were in the sun. The bad news is that it was below 30ºF and the wind was blowing. We heard that the Seahawks were stuck in traffic (Everyone driving was stuck in traffic!), so the parade started late. A few of us had numb toes from the cold.
Marshawn Lynch attempted to throw a bag of Skittles to us, but it hit the bare tree in front of us and fell to the crowd below. Pete Carroll’s HMMWV stopped in front of that tree, and a few fans went to have him autograph their hats and such. They got them back, signed. Then fans started crowding around and just throwing stuff. Carroll signed them all (it looked like he was just signing ‘Pete’), but I wonder how many of those people got their gear back. He was just tossing things out into the crowd. Once the parade started moving again, I saw someone throw a 12th Man jersey to one of the players. (Some of the players were riding in what looked like National Guard dump trucks. I’m sure they weren’t dump trucks because there were seats in the bed, but that’s what they looked like.) The player looked confused, and looked like he assumed the jersey was a gift to him. He didn’t sign it or throw it back. The long-awaited but pretty short parade ended, and we headed back to the office. But I went to my car first to warm up a little, and then I got a bento box from the Korean place near the office. Good thing I packed half of my rice and teriyaki in a container to take home. The boss bought some really good pizza for everyone.
There were some fun things before the parade. Three kids had a model of the Lombardi Trophy, covered in aluminum foil. They were running up and down the block receiving enthusiastic cheers. Sometime later, a 20-something guy with his own replica (which was better than the kids’) paraded up and down the block to very little reaction. Dude, you’re late and it’s cuter when kids do it. Nice try, though. Batman, The Riddler, and someone else (one of The Riddler’s henchmen?) came by on inline skates. When they came by later, they were wearing what appeared to be fuzzy black hats with fuzzy yellow bills around their waists. They looked like codpieces, and they looked very rude. 
Someone had a great dane that had been dyed blue and green.
It was a fun little diversion. I felt a bit of a fraud though, since I didn’t grow up with football. For most of my life it seemed silly. Run around for ten seconds, then mill about on the field for a minute, then run around for eight seconds, then stand around for a couple of minutes, then go to a commercial, then watch the players standing around before they started running again for a few seconds. It’s only in the past dozen years or so that I’ve been watching football, and I’m still not familiar with many aspects. Trying to pick stuff up every season, though. Still it was great to ‘be there when’, when the home team celebrated its first Super Bowl win. 
