Local ‘Petal Pushers’ help decorate Rose Parade float

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Ralph and Marie Walsh sit at their dining room table beside the sweatshirts they wore while working as “Petal Pusher” float decorators in Pasadena, California, just before this year’s Tournament of Roses Parade. Invited to participate because of their support of Lutheran Hour Ministries, the couple spent five days in California, including an eight-hour shift during which they prepared thousands of roses, chrysanthemums, and irises for the Farmers Insurance float.

The new year has already come up roses for one Nodaway County Couple — Ralph and Marie Walsh of rural Pickering — who launched 2017 by working as “Petal Pushers” during the run-up to this year’s Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.

Petal Pushers is the name parade organizers give to members of the large team of volunteers from all over the nation who travel to Pasadena each year to help decorate floats.

The Rose Parade, as it is often called, was first organized in 1890 by a group of civic leaders who wanted to boost tourism with an event that emphasized their state’s mild winters. And what better way to do that than with a procession of floats covered with thousands of newly blossomed roses and other flowers?

The Walshes aren’t quite sure why they were invited to participate, but it was probably because of their support for Lutheran Hour Ministries, which has participated in the parade for the past 67 years and sponsors the procession’s only Christian-themed float.

This year’s Lutheran Hour entry showed Jesus standing before the doors of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany, a landmark site in the history of the Protestant Reformation where Martin Luther posted his famed 95 Theses in 1517, almost exactly 500 years ago.

Both Ralph and Marie are members of Hope Lutheran Church in Maryville.

After receiving a letter asking them if they wanted to volunteer as Petal Pushers, the couple decided it would be a good opportunity to soak up some California rays and visit two of their grown children who live in Phoenix, Arizona.

Both daughters and their husbands signed on to the idea, and the families, including the Walsh’s college-age granddaughter, spent several days together on the West Coast. The fabled Golden State sunshine, however, failed to cooperate.

“The sun came out just once the whole time we were there,” Marie said.

But, cloudy weather notwithstanding, the Walshes said they enjoyed their time in the City of Roses and managed to do some sight-seeing before reporting for work in a large “float barn,” not far from the Rose Bowl, on the Friday afternoon before the parade took place on Monday, Jan. 2.

Once on site, Marie said, the couple was told that the Lutheran Hour float was well in hand, and that they should start preparing flowers for the Farmers Insurance float instead.

For the next eight hours, the couple helped prepare mounds of chrysanthemums, irises, and, of course, roses by either applying glue to the bottom of blooms or inserting shortened stems with the blooms still attached into small water-filled tubes designed to keep the flowers from wilting. The tubes were then set into plastic foam and mounted to the float.

Marie said she was impressed by the precision with which the floats were decorated. Crew chiefs, she said, maintained a precise count of how many rows of blooms were applied and how many flowers were used to create each row.

The Walshes alone, she said, prepared 2,000 irises for the Farmers float during their single shift, which ran from 4 p.m. to a little before midnight.

“It was work, but it was fun, too,” Marie said. “The camaraderie was great. There were people there from all over the country, and everyone was friendly all the way through.”

Ralph said one of the things he noticed was that most of the flowers, and especially the roses, carried almost no scent, having been bred especially for hardiness and color rather than fragrance.

Back in Missouri last week, he said he was still wondering how he was going to get the flower glue off his pants.

Both Walshes said they enjoyed their California trip and might even do it again at some point. And though they didn’t get to work on the Lutheran Hour float, they did get to meet a number of their fellow believers during what happened to be the St. Louis-based Lutheran Hour’s 100th anniversary.

The venerable radio program is the world’s longest-running gospel-centered broadcast and currently airs on more than 1,700 stations across North America.

The Walshes, who, among other contributions, live their faith by driving a 65-mile rural meals-on-wheels route twice a week, said the opportunity to enjoy the Rose Parade experience with fellow Lutherans made the trip especially memorable.

“It was so nice to talk and work with other Christians about our lives and how many experiences we share,” Marie said. “It was a wonderful feeling of how we can help spread the gospel to others around the world.”