As people across the world tune to the Tournament of Roses today, they will see an event that has mirrored--and at times propelled--the growth of Southern California from its dusty youth in the orange groves to maturity as an urban giant.
Where once rose-covered horses and buggies wobbled along dirt ruts to amuse hometown crowds, ever-larger and more elaborate mechanized floats now entertain millions.
Today's Rose Parade in Pasadena will be a freeze frame of the times: a corporate-branded display of technology and entertainment for the banner year 2000.
The grand marshal is Roy E. Disney, scion of the legendary Hollywood family. A Stealth bomber will buzz the crowd. And more than 50 steel behemoths, some with hydraulics and microchips, will rumble down Colorado Boulevard, broadcast live on the Internet for the parade's 111th incarnation.
If all goes as planned, the procession will include a rolling space city and a walking logo of 2,000 people--meant to commemorate the new year before the message morphs into an advertisement for Walt Disney Co.'s latest animation release.
But for all its change, the Tournament of Roses is a tradition that has stayed true to its founders' intention: to celebrate and flaunt Southern California's warm climate against the striking backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains. Despite showers Friday, today's forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with temperatures reaching the mid- to upper 60s.
"It's the intersection of a sales pitch and the true natural gifts of this region," said Donald Waldie, author of "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" and a frequent commentator on the region. "The Tournament of Roses is a perfect example of what Southern California always wanted to be about."
The parade has reflected the rise of automobiles, television and spectator sports. Its list of grand marshals reads like a marquee of the 20th century: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Earl Warren, John Glenn, Kermit the Frog, Edgar Bergen and his sidekick, dummy Charlie McCarthy.
And while the spectacle has become a New Year's Day tradition for the nation, some say it has also served as a psychological link for an area described as myriad suburbs in search of a city.
"It reminds us, when we are choking a bit on smog, caught in gridlock, and watching suburbia cover much of the natural landscape, why we have affection for this place," said Waldie.
