Lions take to the streets as convention starts

Tension. A news story should have a teensy-weensy bit of tension, don't you think?

What kind of possible tension is there when 12,000 of the nicest people you could meet from all over the world have a parade? None, that's what.

They smile a lot, take pictures of each other, wave flags, do some dancing in their native costumes and then smile some more.

On Tuesday morning, the Lions Clubs International, which is holding a convention here, had a 3 ½-hour parade through downtown Seattle. There were 118 countries represented: small contingents, such as two dozen Nepalese; and really big contingents, such as the 1,500 Lions members from South Korea.

It was advertised as the largest parade in city history.

That would be participants, not onlookers, the latter consisting of a few hundred office workers who wandered out to watch on a nice day. This was an event not noticed by most Seattleites.

A good number of those marching were middle-aged and older, and didn't look like they were in the best hiking shape. The older types tended to be from this country. Americans make up one-third of the 12,000 delegates.

The parade route was 0.82 miles from Seattle Center on to Fifth Avenue and ending at the Washington State Convention Center, and this was an 80-degree day.

So it did get a little warm — for Nepalese delegates wearing the national men's dress of a long jacket and trousers that taper like leggings; and for the guys wearing red blazers. For some reason, guys who attend conventions like to wear red blazers. Stations handed out water bottles.

No big deal about the 80 degrees, said Lions International veterans. This was a cakewalk in comparison to parades in years past.

The parade is the big event of the convention, a chance for all the delegates to be together, mingle and see the sheer size of their group.

"Because of the demographics, they do ask we have medics," said Cynthia Lydum, national account director for Seattle's Visitors and Convention Bureau. She said the eight medics provided assistance to a woman who felt lightheaded, and then was fine; and in another call for which she had no details.

Wayne Garrett, 71, a veterinarian from Wentzville, Mo., remembered the 2001 international convention in Indianapolis.

"It was a torrential downpour, washed out the parade. We had water running out of our coat pockets," he said.

By his side was Leland Kolkmeyer, 56, a funeral director from Wellington, Mo. He remembered the parade at the 2002 convention in Osaka, Japan.

"It was hot, and they had a rainstorm that morning. We marched in 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity," he said. "We had people going to the hospital with heat exhaustion."

In the couple of weeks before this week's convention, said Lydum, "I've been freaking out, checking the weather every hour. This was my big baby, to bring this to the city. I promised them good weather for the parade."

Eight years ago, she said, somebody put a "scrap of paper" on her desk, with, "You might want to look into this."

That began Lydum's quest to bring the convention here, which she estimates will mean $40 million in revenue to the area.

The office workers who had wandered out to look at the parade sometimes only had a nebulous idea of what the event was all about.

"Lions Club. Don't they sell poppies every year?" asked Oksana Zinchenko, who does electronic billing at a law firm.

No, that's the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

She was there with another electronic biller at her firm, Susan Druschke The two would look at the various costumed delegates, and try to guess their country of origin from the flag they were carrying.

They were guessing correctly half of the time, said Druschke.

Although some taxi drivers grumbled about Fifth Avenue being closed for several hours on Tuesday, at $40 million in revenue in a bad economy, the delegates were most welcome by city officials and businesses.

On Pine Street, a Seattle cop in his patrol car was being very nice to delegates from China. He posed for photos with them, and even let them sit at the steering wheel of the patrol car so friends could take a picture.

The Chinese delegates seemed beyond thrilled to have a picture taken with a real-life U.S. police officer.

Ya'An Chen, of Beijing, was one of the 1,270 Chinese delegates at the convention.

Here was his impression of Seattle: "Very nice weather. Very green. Blue water."

Like the other delegates, he also mentioned this stuff about volunteerism, especially helping where the government wasn't offering services for the disabled, for example. Chen was very earnest.

The Lions Clubs International has 1.35 million members and is the world's largest service-club organization. These do-gooder types have funded everything from 8 million cataract surgeries worldwide to providing $17 million in support to the Japanese earthquake victims.

They can parade all they want.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237