Tractor Parade embodies spirit of Christmas

With an increasingly successful tractor parade behind them, Erwin Wiens and his wife Dorothy Soo-Wiens are already looking at how to improve the event, which is growing in popularity with the farming community who participate, and the spectators who come out to watch it.

In the days and even hours leading up to Thursday’s parade, Dorothy says their list of tractor entries was growing, and ended up being more than 60, tripling from the first parade three years ago.

“It was so great. Erwin and I went a little crazy marshalling them,” she says. “We’re realizing we’re quickly outgrowing where we’re setting up. And next year we’re going to have to go with road closures.”

Town staff do a great job of rolling closures as the parade moves through the village, but with the number of vehicles parked, and people lining the roads, that doesn’t seem to be enough. “People want to get into their cars and to drive away as soon as it’s gone by, and they’re blocking streets.”

But that’s for next year. Dorothy becomes emotional when she talks of the residents of Pleasant Manor in Virgil, which offers a range of housing options for seniors, from apartments and townhouses to long-term care, who can watch the parade from their windows, balconies, porches and patios as it travels by them — that is her greatest joy, and reason enough to organize the Christmas event.

With the Pleasant Manor expansion underway, she says, Cotton Construction laid some gravel to create a road for the parade that would avoid it, and even had trucks of gravel on hand if needed.

Staff of Pleasant Manor do everything they can to make sure residents can watch the parade, as do family members who join them. “Even long-term care residents can see it from their windows,” she says.

Erwin’s father is a Pleasant Manor resident and can see it from his window on the first floor, she adds.

“It’s very meaningful for us to be able to do this, and for the residents to see it,” she explains, knowing so many of them were members of the farming community — this is a way for that community to give back.

Friday morning she ran into the sister of one of the residents, she says, “and she gave me a huge hug and said thank you. To me, that’s what Christmas is all about.”

And the couple has fun doing it. “Afterwards we had a little thank-you get-together, and the camaraderie the laughter, the stories, that means a lot.”

Every year, she adds, “I say I want to see the people and hear them, but  we can hear kids squealing. I would love to go to Pleasant Manor and see people looking out their windows and on their balconies.”

The farmworker everyone calls Obama was on one of the decorated tractors, and he says there were definitely more people out than last year. Dorothy has heard there were spectators from across the region, including Fort Erie and Grimsby.

“That is crazy beautiful,” she says. “And I can’t help but smile when I think of the people of Pleasant Manor.”