Seattle pride 2016
This weekend, like in so many other cities. Was the Seattle pride parade and festival. Headliners for this years festival where. None other then Candis Cayne and Big Freda, the Queen of bounce music. Unfortunately. Myself and my wife where so tired after getting up at 4am to get eh bus ready and meet everyone. Plus the sun and nature of the event. We where spent by the end of the of the parade and just couldn’t bring ourselves to wait for 2 hours to see these two.
Some of you may know from other posts that I am a school bus driver for the Seattle School Dist and a company called First Student. Which means. That when the Seattle School Dist wants s a bus for the parade so their GSA groups can ride and march. They contact us. We in turn provide them with a bus and driver. The company supplies the bus and then they ask for a volunteer to drive the bus in the parade. Again this year. That driver was me. So I get the best seat in the house. Front drivers seat of a school bus. Large single piece of wrap around glass. I can see them and they can see me This is not a Forest Gump bus. This baby was straight of the factory floor in N.C. it had only 3K miles on it. Never had a student ride in it until this past Sunday.
I always take the opportunity to get dressed up to go to the parade and driving is no different. a chance to strike out and see and be seen. This last year has been a real coming out event. In the past 12 months. I have had “ The Talk “ with my mother, my niece and a couple of other people. Doesn’t sound like much at this stage. Sunday changed all that. While picking up the bus from the yard. I need an answer to a question. Just so happens my boss, the location manager was there. SO. Off to see her and see if she could answer my question. So. I outed myself to her. Her reaction upon seeing me step down the bus stairs. “ Hello Gorgeous. “. Nothing more about it. I asked my question and was on my way. Arriving at the pick-up location for the rest of the crew. I met at that place. The head of dispatch, the location manager from our satellite office/yard. Later that day, joining us on the Parade route was the Location safety manager. So know all the office staff and management have met my fem side. OH but wait. There is more. This was the 42nd annual Seattle pride parade, and Seattle takes it very seriously. It is considered to be the 3 largest Pride in the country. Behind only NY and San Fran. What does that mean in practical terms. All 3 news stations in the city broadcast the Parade live. All 3 station stream it live over the net. So beside the 500,000+ spectators. the rest of the world can watch. Let’s just say they watched in the outskirts of Seattle. One of those people being my mother. Whom as I said earlier. I had had the talk with. But have never shown her any pictures or in person. She never asked, I never offered. She is fine with it. Does care a lick as long as I’m happy. thats good enough for her. So. Me driving the bus in the Pride Parade was literally the FIRST time my mother has seen me en femme. I’ve seen the video from the streaming and you could see me clear as day.
The Parade itself was fun. People cheering and the bus rocking and rolling. SO. Below are two photo’s of myself that I LOVE from the Parade. The other is of the bus I was driving. The black and white wig is new and this was it’s maiden voyage. I kinda liked it.
