FDGD, The Big Day

We had planned on getting to Nederland in time to catch the grand parade that kicks off the festivities. Unfortunately, it took us a awhile to find a parking space and by the time we had parked and walked back downtown, a trip of maybe three of four blocks we'd already missed around half of the parade. The parade itself probably didn't actually run more than a few blocks at most, so it was a wee little parade. But what it lacked in 120 member marching bands and giant floating neoprene cartoon characters it made up with a laid-back sense of cool. Or something like that. Our favorite parts of the parade that we did get to see, included the collection of vintage hearses because well, it's a celebration about a dead guy. Then again, owners of the vintage hearses probably don't get a lot of calls to participate in parades or pretty much anything else outside of Halloween, so FDGD could be something they have circled on their calendars a year in advance. Our other favorite part, was when the street we originally stationed ourselves on to watch the parade, suddenly emptied except for one lone little girl dressed in mourning clothes (dead guy - remember?) who was abandoned when the police changed the parade route, in the middle of the parade to go down another street. The little girl got a good hundred yards or so along before she discovered the parade had deserted her.

And with the end of the parade, the main festivities began.

The main festivities seemed to primarily revolve around either causing pain, or humiliation, or both on the participants. The question wasn't why people would willingly undergo the various torments we observed - the question was where they found so many people to participate. Mary was of the opinion that having the festival in relatively close proximity to a major university helped. I submit that around about February, people up in the mountains in Colorado were probably going a little stir crazy and would willingly sign up for stuffing snow down their pants or pretty much anything as a change of pace.

First off was the Polar Bear Plunge. This apparently is a time honored tradition wherever the weather gets cold enough to freeze lakes and ponds. And that's certainly the case in Nederland. They selected a small pond in a park as the setting for this event, I suspect because it's shallow and it wouldn't be easy for the participants to get lost under the ice. They cut a hole in the ice and a couple of the local firefighters with dry suits were on hand to lend the divers a hand. Maybe not divers per se - more like jumpers. Basically the event went like this: volunteers would walk to the edge of the hole, look down into its brown, turgid depths, wonder what the hell they were doing and jump in. The really amazing part was the velocity and in some circumstances the height reached as the participants leaped out of the water. Every single person, return contestant or not, would have the most amazed expression on their face as they surfaced after immersion. It was something like "How is it possible for every cell on my epidermis to have simultaneously frozen and burst into flame?"

After the polar plunge we attempted to get a beer and a t-shirt. The problem was that the festival organizers obviously don't have a lot of experience with even moderate sized crowds (like I said I suspect a gathering of four people would make the town newspaper, if they had a newspaper) and they used the same large tent for both a live band, beer vendoring and the souvenirs stands. Within a few minutes of opening the tent, and it was the only one they had, it reached critical mass and even though no one was able to get out, new people were continuously added to the mass. I expected the whole mass to implode into a neutron star at any time.

So we had to skip the beer, sadly, as I could see the tables where it was being sold but my strength was insufficient to move through the scrum. We did manage to score a few t-shirts though, and were pleased with that.

After our, or I should say my, thwarted efforts at beer consumption we attended the main event of the festival - the Coffin Races. Why this is a trend in Colorado we have no idea. A small town near where we live also has a coffin race, though in the spring rather than the winter. And it is based on a real purported historical event in which a thunderstorm washed some coffins down from a hillside into the middle of town. In Nederland's case, the connection is rather more tenuous, consisting of the fact that the festival is based around a dead guy. But he's not in a coffin, and even if he was no one has run around town carrying the last resting place of Grandpa Bredo, cause it's a big steel box, so it's all pretty confusing until you take the profit motive into account.

Anyway, the Coffin Race is pretty entertaining, definitely the highlight of the festival (well, if don't count the Champagne Tour of the mausoleum). Basically a group of 6-8 people carry what is euphemistically called a coffin around an obstacle course with hills made of piled up snow and mud hazards. The 'coffin' has to contain a real person though it's not apparent if the passenger is actually supposed to alive or not. I guess he or she has to be because halfway through the course, the carriers have to drop the coffin on the ground and they and the passenger have to do a Chinese fire drill. So having a non-living team member would seem to be contraindicated.

Anyhow, the coffins ranged from completely bare bones - basically some PVC pipe with webbing to hold the passenger to much more ornate constructions with décor. The teams also seemed to be encouraged to adopt a theme such as Roman legionnaires, cowboys, and, of course, pirates.

The races consisted of heats with two teams each going through the course at a time. This allowed for a maximum potential of coffin bumping and dirty tricks and such but in reality one team would be much more proficient then their competitors and would take an early lead, so collisions on the course were rare. Plus, it's Colorado and I don't think the inhabitants have the slightest concept about using dirty tricks. On the other hand, construction techniques did often take a back seat to cosmetic adornment and in a few cases the coffins deconstructed in mid-race, leaving the team members running through the course each carrying a piece of the former race vehicle to the finish line. And there were the requisite and always enjoyable face plants when teams stumbled or fell. Good times.

The remaining events of the day seemed even more masochistic then the big headliner events. One apparently consisted of a contest to see who could stuff the most snow in their pants. Sadly, we skipped that as well as the frozen fish toss. We're not sure why a frozen fish toss is included in Frozen Dead Guys days other than the fact that the fish are frozen and dead. This seemed too little appeal to us till we learned later that the throwers apparently beaned a innocent passerby with a hunk of frozen salmon. She appeared to come through the intersection of her head with the icy piscine chunk with no ill effects. And no - I do not know why they used salmon - in Colorado we're as far from a salmon stream as it is possible to get in the continental US.

By the time we had finished watching most of the above we were thirsty, and cold, and thirsty, and I had reservations at a little brasserie, so we lurched back over to our car and headed down the mountain to the charms of downtown Boulder. All in all, we had a great time. It's really a nice change to go attend what is obviously still a loosely organized, totally amateurish event with a wide swath of Coloradans of pretty much every persuasion. If they ever get the beer tent separated from the band and the souvenirs we might even go back.