Date: Fri 01-Sep-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-Sleepers-casting-traffic

Full Text:

An Excuse For A Traffic Jam

It was a kind of unorganized Labor Day Parade, one week early. Between noon

and 4 pm on Monday, Main Street filled with traffic, and throngs of people,

mostly young men wearing well-considered outfits, marched up and down Main

Street, converging at Edmond Town Hall to encircle the building and to

nervously wait.

A few unlucky souls tried to get into the town hall to do business in the

offices there, or to attend the matinee of The Indian in the Cupboard . At

times the nearest empty parking place to the town hall was in the Newtown

Shopping Center on Queen Street. One patrolman assigned to traffic duty on

Main Street sighed "This is ridiculous," as he tried to weave the serpentine

lines of people and cars into something resembling movement.

And what was it all for? The chance for an unspecified number of people to

become part the unheralded, uncredited background of a movie. Silly? Perhaps.

Superficial? In the context of all the world's problems, definitely. But there

was something very appealing about the people who made up the huge crowd in

the center of town on Monday. They were enthusiastic, bright, good humored,

and in this context, at least, they didn't take themselves too seriously. They

were just out to have some fun on the fringes of fame, which is one the better

excuses for a traffic jam we've heard lately.