Our 11th Peace Train entry in the Montrose Christmas Parade

[Brian]

Most of the 21 peaceniks who marched with the Peace Train in the 2019 parade.

That photo was taken at the most recent Montrose Christmas Parade, before the Covid pandemic canceled the 2020 and 2021 parades. Up until then, we had marched in ten consecutive Montrose Christmas Parades with our custom built Peace Train. The parade returns this year on Saturday evening, December 3, and we'll be there.

The website of the Montrose Christmas Parade Association: montrosechristmasparade.com/

I cannot express what a thrill it is to feel the goodwill from the families that crowd along Honolulu Avenue but all of us regulars hope you'll consider experiencing it for yourself. Watch this thread for more information about getting together before the parade starts -- then for reports and photos afterwards. Or just stop by the northwest corner of Honolulu and Ocean View Boulevard in Montrose, CA 91020 any Friday between 5:30 and 7 p.m.

Here's the official 2019 Montrose Christmas Parade video cued up to the first sighting of the Peace Train:

[Roberta]

Here’s our save-the-date and invitation to get on board The Peace Train 2022. All peaceniks welcome!

Dear Peace friends,

The Montrose Christmas Parade (https://montrosechristmasparade.com) is ON this year after a 2 year hiatus. The Montrose Peace Vigil, standing for peace since 2006, plans with hope, realism, and flexibility to roll on, and we cordially invite you on board our Peace Train in the parade, Saturday evening, December 3rd. We’ll be serving hearty refreshments starting at 3:30pm at my home on Sycamore Avenue, very near the parade start, or you can come find us on Honolulu Avenue west of Rosemont/Roselawn Avenue after 5pm as the parade lines up for the 6pm start.

As we’ve learned since 2020 we don’t always know when something fun is happening for the last time or for a long time, so I say do it now. The Peace Train is a popular part of this hometown parade viewed by thousands, and our goal is a big turnout for the cause of peace.

We hope you can join us and that you mark your calendars now — December 3rd will be here before we know it — and as usual feel free to invite all your peacenik family and friends!

Love,
Roberta
for the Montrose Peace Vigil

[Roberta]

Check out montrosechristmasparade.com/supporters/ and scroll down a little to Parade Supporters to see our logo as a Silver sponsor!

And due to rising respiratory infections and L.A. County’s renewed indoor mask recommendation, we’ll gather OUTDOORS, anyone who wants to come to my house before the parade — see your email!

[Brian]

Russell and Nina led the Peace Train with our new banner this year.

31 peaceniks march with the Peace Train in the Montrose Christmas Parade

Our 11th entry in the Montrose Christmas Parade on December 3, 2022 might have been the best march ever. Besides our near record participation, we had great weather: no drizzle as in 2019 and previous parades and the temperature stayed in the high 50's. The turnout by spectators was among the best I've seen -- crowds lined the sidewalks long before the parade reached the official starting point of Rosemont Avenue. As always, we passed thousands of beautiful people clapping, waving, flashing peace signs and calling out greetings. The kids were especially delightful.

Engineer Mike pushed the Peace Train from the inside, behind the tall front panel obstructing his view. Jim and I walked on each side of him to give directions. Everybody on the street could hear Mike's excellent sound system that played Cat Stevens' "Peace Train" on a loop between train whistles. The rest of the peaceniks marched behind the train. They were joined by four guys from Crescenta Valley High School at Ocean View Boulevard, the first time I remember spontaneous participants marching with us. And thanks to our old friend Joyce -- who was a part of the Peace Train since its debut in 2010 -- for coming by to visit with us beforehand even though she wasn't able to march this year.

We will post more photos soon. I invite anybody who took photos to please e-mail them to Anni or me -- we'd love to include them too!

[Roberta]

Quotes from my inbox on the 2022 parade:

“Last night was such fun. I was warm and cozy in my jacket and big girls shirt. Was great having the young people join us! Wish I had thought to invite them to meet us at the peace corner Friday nites. Maybe someone else did. Thank you Roberta, and the others, for all your work.” Janice O’C

“Everyone in our group had a great time at the parade. We were also a big success with the crowds. Good job, Roberta. Seemed to me that the crowds were bigger this year.” Jim

“Best year ever.” Jeanne

“Such a great night.” Catherine Yesayan

[Brian]

That photo above illustrates why Anni and I are begging for photos taken by other people at last Saturday's Montrose Christmas Parade. I had always assumed that I was entirely responsible for the blurry, ill lit group shots I usually take, but another photo with me in it -- taken by somebody else on my ancient digital camera -- was even worse.

I mentioned that the 31 people who marched with the Peace Train was a near record for participation.  In the 2016, 36 peaceniks marched.  The previous parade in 2019 drew 21 marchers, one more than the record low of 20 in 2012, the last parade before Mike put the Peace Train on wheels -- we carried the side panels with straps mounted on the inside down Honolulu Avenue for the first three years.

Locally based writer, activist and international traveler Catherine Yesayan inspired four of her relatives to march with us an hour before the parade started by calling her son, who brought his sister Meldia and Catherine's granddaughter Ramela and grandson Markar.  Thank you, Catherine!

Our entry had a earlier number, B51, compared to the B82 we had last time, so we were rolling by 6:35 and done less than half an hour later.

Lastly for now, I want to pay tribute to Nina and Russell, who not only heralded the Peace Train by carrying the new banner in their festive costumes -- they bridged the gap between the Peace Train and the next entry often half a block down the road by engaging with the crowds as they marched. (Two entries directly ahead of us never showed up, and we fell further behind because the parade never paused as in past years.)   Russell assembled his costume from his hat down to the holiday slippers covering his tennis shoes, as seen below, by drawing on the professional wardrobe of performer and longtime Montrose Peace Vigil regular Justeen.

[night photog]

Dec 8, 2022 0:00:26 GMT -8 Brian said:

That photo above illustrates why Anni and I are begging for photos taken by other people at last Saturday's Montrose Christmas Parade. I had always assumed that I was entirely responsible for the blurry, ill lit group shots I usually take, but another photo with me in it -- taken by somebody else on my ancient digital camera -- was even worse.

I have an entry level Nikon DSLR (Nikon D-60), with the "Nikon 35mm f/1.8 AF-S" lens.  The kit lens that comes with the camera is a 18-55m f/3.5-5.6 lens.

At night, the f/3.5-5.6 aperture lens wouldn't focus very well - the motor would "hunt" back and forth, looking for something to focus on.  When I got the f/1.8 aperture lens, I could take photos at night, even though the night was dark, the picture would come out looking bright (using the f/3.5-5.6 lens in manual focus would show a dark picture).  It's great for taking pictures of Christmas lights on people's houses.  However, if I focus on one particular element at night, that one thing would be in very sharp focus, but everything behind or in front of that object would be a little out of focus because of depth of field.

www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/35mm-f18.htm

kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm says about this "Nikon 35mm f/1.8 AF-S":

The fast f/1.8 aperture of this $197 lens lets it capture three times as much light as any $1,800 f/2.8 zoom, and five to ten times as much light as any other more reasonable zoom lens. Not bad for $197!

I usually use just this lens all day instead of a zoom because it lets me shoot indoors without flash, without a problem! If I need to shoot closer or father away, I simply move forward or back.

Because it gathers so much more light than zoom lenses, my cameras don't have to shoot at such a high ISO or slow shutter speed, so I can take great photos in bad light.

I'd suggest everyone who shoots indoors or in dim light get one of these lenses, since its a wonderful lens with a wonderful price. It works on all DX cameras.

---

FX cameras are the full frame 35mm cameras.  DX cameras have a smaller sensor, so if you had a Nikon and a 18-55mm zoom lens, you'd multiply by 1.6 to get the focal length (18*1.6 and 55*1.6), and for Canon you'd multiply by 1.5

www.kenrockwell.com/ has lots of good photography articles.  kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm is a good read, and he has many tutorials and reviews on the site.

[Brian]

Thank you for the excellent camera advice, night photog! We also appreciate the other posts you've made as a Guest for the past few years (under different names, of course).

It usually takes a few weeks for the high-quality official video to be posted by the city, but Russell told us about a 36-minute amateur video that dronm43 edited for You Tube. I cued it to the beginning of the Peace Train's 25 seconds of screen time:



This clip from another You Tube montage by Camera Guy near the start of the march is shot much closer to the train and the peaceniks:



And Artin Matt took this video across the street from the launch point:

[Mat's Mom]

The "official" video is up in the MyGlendale account at youtube. The Peace Train segment is from ~29:58 to 30:40.

[Brian]

Scrolling through the previous ten Peace Train threads scattered throughout the 22-page Montrose Peace Vigil Activities department on this message board, I realized that I never posted photos showing the Peace Train from all four sides, especially the tribute on the caboose to Glendale Peace Vigil, which ran from 2002 to 2012 and co-sponsored our earliest entries in the Montrose Christmas Parade.  So here are my shots taken before the parade this year for posterity.

While scrolling, I gathered the attendance tallies from our prior Peace Train entries. I've kept track of the marchers by writing down everybody's first names with a lot of help from Roberta before and after each parade to ensure an accurate count. There is no tally for 2015 below because I didn't attend that year.

• 2010 - 26
• 2011 - 28
• 2012 - 20
• 2013 - 28
• 2014 - 32
• 2016 - 36
• 2017 - 30
• 2018 - 28
• 2019 - 21
• 2022 - 31