Remembering the beauty, magic of Rose Parade

Mathis Winkler

BALBOA PENINSULA -- As a young woman, Venoa Morgan didn’t feel she was

up to performing royal duties.

So instead of trying out to become the queen of Pasadena’s Rose

Parade, Morgan preferred to glue flowers on floats.

“I wouldn’t have enough guts [to be queen,]” Morgan said last week as

she sat on the porch of her Harding Street house, which she shared with

her husband, Paul, who died last year.

“I wasn’t very outgoing at that age,” she said, adding that she

married in 1936 at age 18. “I didn’t have the confidence.”

Another Newport Beach resident, who will celebrate her 50th

anniversary as Rose Queen in 2002, said that she kind of just fell into

the job because all Pasadena school girls were required to try out as

part of gym class.

“I was too young and naive to know what I was getting into,” said

Nancy Skinner, adding that she was more nervous when she addressed City

Council members as a community activist for the first time.

While Morgan avoided the parade’s limelight as a queen, she eventually

rode on floats in 1977 and 1978 -- a few years after her family had

settled in Newport Beach.

In 1977, Union Oil had chosen “Bridging the Generations” as the theme

for its float and the company was looking for a family that spanned three

generations, Morgan said.

“They didn’t want to pick someone working for them,” she added. The

builder of the float knew the Morgans and suggested the family for the

parade.

It wasn’t all fun, Morgan remembered.

“You have to be there at 5 a.m. and it can be chilly,” she said,

adding that for obvious reasons “they won’t let you have anything to

drink for breakfast. There’s no way you can get off [the float] and go to

the bathroom.”

Once the floats got rolling, the family had a blast, she said,

remembering how they stood on three islands that were connected by

bridges.

“They kept yelling at my son, ‘Are you Bruce Jenner?’ ” she said,

referring to the 1976 Olympic decathlon winner.

When someone would call out simply: “Are you anybody?” her husband

didn’t hesitate to shoot back a reply.

“Yeah, I’m the chairman of the board,” responded Paul Morgan, who

worked as a maintenance crew foreman for the Pasadena school district.

Real celebrities occupied the float ahead, Morgan said: Donny and

Marie Osmond caused large crowds of people to hold up the parade.

“Marie didn’t give autographs,” she said. “But Donny did.”

The mile-long route went by faster than she’d expected, Morgan said.

“It seemed like 15 minutes,” she said. “We were so excited that we

were still waving at the end of the parade.”

The float’s builder later sent the family a framed photograph. On the

back, he had written: “Union Oil thinks you’re beautiful. Better get out

your long johns.”

The Morgans needed their warm underwear again the following year, but

this time as the family for a doughnut bakery’s “There’s No Place Like

Home” float, Morgan said.

The mother of two, grandmother of six and great-grandmother of two

said that she still watches the parade on television each year.

“But you don’t get the real beauty of it,” she said, sitting next to a

basket filled with colorful flowers made out of fabric. “They can’t use

anything that isn’t natural. They can’t dye any flowers. If they want

blue flowers, they have to get them somewhere.”

It didn’t take Morgan long to decide whether she’d ride on a float

again.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s very interesting.”