SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Like scores of other residents from this beach town, Kay Shaw opted to walk to the 50th annual Swallows’ Day Parade on Saturday morning.
“You miss a lot from a car,” said Shaw, a pioneer of the Fiesta Association, organizer of the parade.
Past Roman Catholic landmarks and patches of pavement that spurred memories of Spanish dancing as a child, the 86-year-old made her way down from her hillside home to grab a prime vantage point. With a spotless attendance record, she knew exactly where to find it.
This year, Shaw sat at the helm of the procession as Grand Marshal. More than 100 other participants, including marching bands, folkloric dancers and floats followed her horse-drawn carriage along the 1-mile route while more than 45,000 people watched and cheered.
“Dazed” is how she described her reaction to finding out she was selected. When the Fiesta Association board of directors conference-called her two months ago with the good news, she was reminded of the time 25 years ago when her late husband C. Fulton Shaw was given the same honor.
“My husband always said, ‘You got to bring the people in,’ ” she said, thinking back to even earlier in the parade’s history when celebrities such as Barbara Stanwyk were honored.
Clad in a black sash and pearl earrings, Shaw shared her carriage with several family members. The other guests of honor, the cliff swallows that migrated here last week from Argentina, were nowhere in sight.
Contrary to the lyrics of the classic Leon René song, “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano,” the birds actually disperse throughout the Southwest on their return, said Mayor Joe Soto. In addition, he said, noise and light pollution ward them away from the heart of the city.
Still, said Monique Rea, amateur avian expert and this year’s Ms. Fiesta, San Juan residents routinely find and try to get rid of the mud dwellings of swallows’ nests on their roofs.
“How would you like to be hosed down?” asked Rea.
At the rear of the parade, 9-year-olds Hayley Parvin and K.K. Hardsgrad were doing some cleaning of their own. Scrubbing the road with a brush and scooping the leavings of around 500 horses into blue trash cans, the girls responded to their unglamorous volunteer post with smiling enthusiasm.
“I fell in some yesterday, so this is not so bad,” said Parvin, who added that she’s used to the smell from riding horses.
In previous years, before being hoisted into the limelight, Shaw was no stranger to manual labor. She was the “orange juice squeezer” for the parade’s pancake breakfast, where this year the city’s Women’s and Rotary clubs tirelessly cooked for 1,000 diners.
“I started when this was just a tiny town. … The freeway wasn’t built and the little businesses weren’t up,” she said. “It’s wonderful to start something and see it last this long.”
Contact the writer: cbird@ocregister.com or 949-553-2915
