The return of the Petaluma Chicken Pluckers to the Mendocino 4th of July parade is just one of the fun things to crow about during Independence weekend on the Coast
Janice Littrell, executive director of the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce, invites everyone to enjoy the longest and most diverse parade in years, along with music, the circus, a street dance, history and fun that will last till 9 p.m. in 2025.
The Petaluma Chicken Pluckers started in the late 1970s when Maury Ward of Oakland wanted to join the wacky fun and made a banner that said Petaluma Chicken Pluckers on the front. On the back, it said he was not from Petaluma and didn't know how to pluck chickens!
He and Little River Friends, the late Ig and Mary Yakoshkin marched the pluckers to a different tune for decades after that.
There was a chicken wedding, middle-aged guys dressed up as roosters bumping chests, a marching band, and angry chickens protesting KFC. It ended a decade ago but is now being brought back by Janice Eklund-Cook, who worked with Ig and Mary at Stanford Inn and loved being among the Petaluma Chicken Pluckers who were not from Petaluma.
Their return promises some fowl laughs.
“This could be one of the most fun and silliest parades in years, bring the kids but it will be fun for the entire family,” Littrell said.
Also back this year will be a kids' delight, Fred Dickson’s big mama bear on the tiny motorcycle, with all the little baby bears following along on a string. Kids often run out and try to grab the mysteriously darting tiny baby bears. How is it done? Come find out.
Gertie the Gorse Monster, another local icon will also be back too. Gertie, a Chinatown style monster with one person in the head and others filling the wiggling segments and tail, rarely seen outside of Caspar is named for the truly monstrous invasive Gorse and Scotch Broom which have devastated the natural environment there and made walking ouchy.
Since at least 1876, the Mendocino Fourth of July Parade has been a patriotic, wacky, unpredictable event that mobs the town mostly with locals, accompanied by tourists who seem delighted, bemused, offended or in some years, bored.
No boredom this year, but lots of history
“Thanks to the help of research by Real Estate Magazine, we have information from a column in the 1880s by William Heeser, the founder of the Mendocino Beacon about a splendid parade that took place for the occasion of America’s 100th birthday,” said Littrell.
She said the parade has not happened every year since then, with several gaps in the fun, but this is the 149th year for the Mendocino Parade,” Littrell said.
It was wacky and silly from the start which might be why it has lived so long. There were once a dozen parades in Mendocino County on July 4. Today, the Mendocino parade and the Willits parade that opens Frontier Days are still big deals, but the rest are gone.
Locals decked out in powdered wigs and farcical costumes led the earliest Mendocino 4th of July parades in a tradition called a “procession of the horribles.”
The tradition originated in New England.Regular people got the chance to dress up and make fun of everybody from George Washington to their boss, even to their pastor. Mendocino was sometimes pretending to be a New England town back in those days.
One old Mendocino Beacon described a glamorous woman playing Dollly Madison flirting with the crowd, while her diminutive husband James scampered along bowing and obeying.
The irreverence and defiance of the norm has continued for more than a century with the likes all Susan and all Kathy marching bands, streakers, Pebbles Trippett and her wheelbarrow full of pot plants, and the Breasts not Bombs group.
“The parade's grand marshal this year will be local businesses (and organizations?) that have been in Mendocino for 50 years or 40 years,” Littrell said.
“The Kelley House Museum., Corners of the Mouth Grocery for 50 years and Harvest Market, Winesong, and the Mendocino Coast hospitality center for 40 years.”
Mendocino Masonic Lodge Number 179, which goes back 160 years, will offer a rare peek inside for its Independence Day event. Nine masons signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Tours start at 10 a.m. and end at 2 p.m. into the iconic lodge topped by the Time and the Maiden Sculpture, which has been awing and perplexing tourists and locals alike since that first parade was held.
The number of entries this year far outruns the floats in the last two parades. They range from veterans to the fire trucks, to a giant flag, to art and theater groups. In 1976, the fire department reluctantly helped restart the parade that had fallen victim to Vietnam and Watergate cynicism. True to the worries, the fire volunteers ended up doing most everything, from closing streets to trying to keep rebellious Mendocinities in order. Today it is put on in conjunction with the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce.
2025 figures to be the longest and busiest parade day in decades, perhaps since the 19th century, not ending till 9 p.m
Back then, the event lasted from early morning till dark with events all day such as the fat man and married women races and ending with the release of a greased pig that kids and tipsy adults would chase through town.
No oinker chase in 2025 but several farms and likely a few farm animals will be in the parade. The Mendocino Farmers Market starts at noon on the east side of Rotary Park. There will a big party on the Kelley House lawn during the parade and the whole east side of town will be full of fun, with a Makers Market at Rotary Park with music by the Brown Brothers.
Just a block north Frankie’s Pizza will hold a street dance party that doesn’t end till 6 p.m. The Flynn Creek Circus, whose performers join and do acrobatics in the parade, will have a show under the big top at 2 p.m. on Friday.
Instead of having a 7 p.m show, the circus will come down to Rotary Park to join a music and performance party. Queer Country has an album release. That band plays folk, country and other music with a unique flare. The circus will perform acts between band sets.
Mad Cad, the iconic and unique parade entry, is gone permanently from Mendocino to Houston Texas where artist Larry Fuente was commissioned to create it by a woman, whose son is now working with Larry’s daughter, Aura, to make the car a centerpiece of the huge art car movement that Mad Cad launched there in the 1980s
Politics, absent for the past few years is back. Mendocino Indivisible plans a big splash this year and there was talk of a march to save Mendocino’s water tower.
Come to get your chair set up before 11 as the crowds are always big and parking can be a long march if you wait much past then. The center of the parade is between the Kelley House and the Ford House, where the chamber and KOZT set up the announcing and judging platform.
“I would like to extend a shout to Tom and Vicky and everybody at KOZT Although they have the big radio voices, they have been doing this quielty and without recognition for longer than many parade participants have been alive,” said Littrell.
The weekend continues with the Worlds Largest Salmon barbecue in Fort Bragg on Saturday followed by fireworks Saturday night. There will also be lens tours of the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse on Saturday and a Flynn Creek Circus favorite at 7 pm Saturday night, when audience members must be over 21 and presumably, not easily offended. Enjoy the big weekend. If you drink, don’t drive, please.
Have the parades in Point Arena and Boonville been cancelled?
Point Arena fireworks are still on at Arena Cove. Street Fair opens at 4pm. Live music. Food. Fireworks at dusk. $10 per person.