Hope Floats Anew Down Colorado Boulevard

On a chill New Year’s Eve in 1969, Los Angeles native Mike Riffey stepped up to his first official assignment as a newly elected member of the Tournament of Roses committee. “My job for the night was to guard an alley by Pasadena Avenue and make sure no one trespassed into the formation area.” He confesses he was scared to death about making any mistakes. “A neighbor of mine who was a doctor was guarding another one of the barricades and told me that people were bringing him food and coffee and TV sets the whole evening. The only people I saw were three young ladies who were quite inebriated and offered me all sorts of things as a bribe to get through.”

He chuckles in reminiscence. “As I later told the directors of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses when I became president, if I had done what they asked, I wouldn’t be wearing the traditional red coat and I wouldn’t be married!”

Now retired, the former head of the Tournament of Roses reveals that he didn’t see the parade at all that year. “In fact, it was quite a number of years until I got on other committees that allowed me to watch what was going on out front.” His observations – combined with a century’s worth of archival photos and retrospectives – comprise one of Riffey’s most recent achievements, an elegant and informative coffee table book entitled “More Than a Parade” and published by Stephens Press.

So how did this tome – his first published work - come about?

I was a senior vice president at Citizens Business Bank in Pasadena and they asked me to do a couple of radio spots for them since I was the president of the Tournament that year. Over the course of lunch and an interview, the vice president of our bank’s advertising agency remarked, ‘Well, you’ve been on one of our freeway billboards, you’ve done radio spots and now you’re going to be president of the Tournament of Roses. What do you want to do next?’ Jokingly, I thought I should tell them I wanted to go to Disneyland!”

What he replied instead was that he’d really like to write a book that would entail vignettes, interviews, photos and behind-the-scenes stories about what goes into putting on the greatest parade in the world. “Well, I had no clue what was coming next but when I finished explaining my concept they informed me they were also publishers, loved the idea, and wanted me to write it. Within two weeks, I had a book contract.”

From that moment, Riffey started putting together over 300 interviews with past queens, grand marshals, volunteers, float builders, equestrians, celebrities, band members and anyone else he and his committee members could think of. “We wanted to tackle all aspects of the event in a way that had never been covered before. What I wanted to create was a book you could open at any page and find photos, sidebars, and reminiscences and be totally entertained.”

He had no idea, of course, what a complicated process it would be to put together a book of this magnitude…or that it would take two and a half years to complete. “I think my initial expectation was that it would be a modest little paperback of interesting stuff that members could buy as a souvenir memento. Imagine my surprise when the finished product turned out to be 254 pages with 750 photographs.” The latter, he points out, was culled down from over 6,000 images from past parades. Composer John Williams, who was Riffey’s grand marshal the year he was president, was recruited to pen the book’s foreword.

I also wanted to include things about how to put a float in the parade, how do you become a queen and court member, what are the prizes awarded in various categories, as well as over a century of anecdotes from its colorful history. There is also a commemorative nod to the late Holly Halsted Balthis who was our Rose Queen in 1930 and was considered the grande dame of all the queens for many years.” As a bit of trivia, this Depression-era beauty recalled in a 1995 interview that she did not have a crown and was given $10 to make her own dress for the parade.

Readers looking for a last minute holiday present should take note that the book is available through Amazon as well as a Vroman’s, Borders and Barnes and Noble in Pasadena and the offices of the Tournament of Roses. Adds Riffey, “I don’t accept any royalties for this; any money that is made on it goes directly to the Tournament of Roses Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the organization.”

It was a comment from Art Linkletter, Riffey shares, that gave the book its official title. “Originally we were going to call it ‘Behind the Scenes’. When Linkletter was grand marshal in 2003 along with Bill Cosby and Mr. Rogers, he observed that this experience was more than a parade. And it really is. You learn something new about the parade every single year but what stands out as so unique to me are the number of stories that people share about their experience. One young lady, for instance, participated in her first parade in 2006 – the year Pasadena was deluged with heavy rains. She revealed that even though she got a horrible cold as a result, she’d do it all over again in a heartbeat because she had so much fun. I’m always touched and overwhelmed by the true passion that our members (935 strong plus 80 auxiliary members over the age of 65), the thousands of float and parade volunteers, and the community at large pour into this event as a way of giving back. In today’s age, the spirit of volunteerism is such a crucial component and I think our organization is exemplary in conveying this message to the rest of the world.”

Ever wonder how the order of floats is determined? As Riffey illustrates, there’s an aesthetic science to it in which chairmen of the float entries, equestrian and music committees attempt to mix and match the participants for the best balance and entertainment value. “For instance, you don’t want to have three floats in a row or several bands in a row that wear similarly colored uniforms. When I was on the equestrian committee, I also tried to mix up the breeds of horses so they’d be evenly disbursed.”

Once the first layout is drafted, it is reviewed closely to ensure it’s workable. He recalls that one year there was a unique group of horsemen comprised of handicapped and disabled children. “We didn’t want a really loud, booming band right behind them that might startle the kids or their horses.” Returnees to the parade lineup are equitably rotated from year to year. Just being part of such a magnificent event, Riffey explains, usually assuages any potential grumpiness about placement.

He further divulges that the presiding president has the privilege of choosing the first band in the parade, choosing the band that will go directly behind his or her car, and deciding which float will go first. “This float basically depicts the theme of that year’s parade. When my theme was ‘Music, Music, Music’, my pick was a giant calliope featuring all kinds of fun music.”

He is quick to note that the wet weather on January 2, 2006 did little to dampen the spirits of parade participants and attendees. “Interestingly, we had fewer band members drop out than we’ve had in parades that have been dry. I think maybe it’s a challenge for these kids to say, ‘Okay, it hasn’t rained in 50 years and now it’s going to rain on us but we’re proud and happy and we’re going to all hang in there and make this work’.”

Riffey has no shortage of personal moments that are special to him. “I’ll never forget having General Tommy Franks as my guest the year I was president and having him tell me this was one of the most memorable moments of his life. He also asked if he could walk across the field with me at the start of the Rose Bowl. Well normally it’s your family and the grand marshal who walk with you, and I was asked whether I was really going to let Tommy Franks do that. My response? You really think I’m going to tell a general ‘no’? He was very gracious, had fun, and we were quite proud to have him with us.”

Riffey’s most touching story, however, is unquestionably the conversation he had with a young man named Brian from New Hampshire who thanked him for being allowed to march in the Tournament of Roses parade when he was in high school. “He said, ‘You gave me the courage to live my life on a day to day basis’. Brian had lost one of his lungs to cancer but was determined to play his instrument for the entire arduous stretch of the parade route.”

As inspiring a story as this was, however, Riffey adds the postscript that Brian’s subsequent health challenges found him on the waiting list for a heart transplant several years later. “‘When I was in the hospital,’ Brian told me, ‘and remembering how you had given me the courage to march in the parade, I knew that I could wait for how ever long it took to get my new heart.’”

A lump comes to Riffey’s throat as he explains that he has shared that story in talks throughout the country. “What a tremendous message that was, not just for the members of the Tournament of Roses but also for anyone who ever thinks that the going is rough and that maybe they should give up. I tell people, ‘when you get tired at three miles, just think of Brian’.”