The first parade participant we saw out our window on Saturday, July 16, 2011, was the indefatigable County Council member, Barbara Brenner, in rain garb, standing in the bed of a red pickup truck. When last seen Brenner, currently the longest serving Council member, was still standing on the truck.

Flush from a positive article that week in the Cascadia Weekly, Tom Anderson, described by editor Tim Johnson as an “underdog in the race for County Executive”, wearing just a suit despite the drizzle, walked the whole parade route speaking enthusiastically to bystanders. (Unfortunately, many were not Whatcom voters.)

But the most exhuberant campaigner was Ruby May, who darted from one side of the parade to the other putting Anderson cards, fortunately encased in plastic, in the hands of smiling participants regardless of residence. Little Miss May was celebrated in Whatcom politics in 2009 when she appeared tearfully before a closed library in an ad that was credited with winning that levy.

Ruby is the daughter of Richard May, who managed that campaign. The previous year he was an organizer for Barack Obama in several states. Richard, who was also passing out Anderson cards, said he is working for him and other Democrat candidates in Whatcom.

Found standing quietly among the onlookers before Sunday's Ducky Derby, was Bellingham's mayor, Dan Pike. Congratulated for his stand against the coal trains and the proposed pier at Cherry Point for shipping coal to China, he said he is pleased that the mayors of Seattle, Tacoma and other cities have joined the fray. And he is particularly pleased that the Washington Department of Ecology has also joined. “That means,” he said, “Whatcom County will not foot the legal bills.”

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