If you've ever been in Utah on the 24th of July, you know that the parade downtown is the BIG event of the year. What you might not know is that a week or two earlier, there's another parade. Or at least there used to be. This was the Children's Parade, and if your ward was chosen to participate, you got to march several blocks in costume from downtown Salt Lake to Liberty Park.

The year our ward drew one of the lucky slots, I think we must have been long on creativity and short on budget. Our Primary leaders got the bright idea to buy rolls of corrugated cardboard, paint it gold, and staple lengths of it into tubes with holes cut out to see through. In case you haven't guessed it, we children were thus magically transformed into the pipes of the mighty Tabernacle Organ.

All I really remember about that parade was that it was hot in my costume, that my parents probably didn't know which organ pipe was me except that I was one of the taller ones, and that we got a blue Popsicle at the end of the parade route. But, given the fact that I remember even that much about an event that occurred more than 40 years ago, I think it would be safe to call it one of the formative experiences in my young life of Church participation.

Truth is, I was proud to be an organ pipe. I was proud to be part of a genuine parade, an important celebration. I was proud to BELONG.

And I still am.