PASADENA — As a native Pasadenan, whose father and grandmother were also born here, a person can get a little … inured … to the whole Tournament of Roses thing.
Then, I always had to get up too early the next day to save the pre-game picnic site on a grassy little knoll just off the 18th green at Brookside Golf Course just north of the stadium for my grandfather’s annual post-parade bash, known as Wilson Hill. Thinking back on that now, it wasn’t so bad, once I got there. Famous people were on display. Semi-famous. I was introduced to the minority leader of the United States Senate, Everett Dirksen, the year he was parade grand marshal. Though I was 13, I even semi-knew who he was, being an avid reader of the Pasadena Star-News every afternoon.
But you don’t miss your roses till the garden goes dry, and it’s only with the pandemic lockdown year of 2021 in mind – the game decamped to Texas, of all places – and even last year’s diminished festivities, as some viral variant or another kept me from wanting to be anywhere near the crowds, that I’m beginning to appreciate all things Tournament of Roses again.