The Vulcans went back to their traditional red suits this year. Last year they featured costumes of such theatrical influence that they looked like characters from one of the movies about Middle-earth. In fact, last year, when I first saw them, I didn’t know they were Vulcans until it was explained to me.
Last year’s group was the first to reflect new changes intended to bring a more humane and compassionate image to the group.
Now, God willing and the creek don’t rise, the current fellows will get through the Winter Carnival without anybody having to dial 911. In the first place, they are already unmasked and identified. They were identified in Sunday’s paper, along with Boreas (Don Schoeller) and the Queen of the Snows (Cassie Genz). Unmasking the Vulcans at the start is a little bit like unmasking the bad guy in a wrestling match before he takes the ring, but traditions change as they must.
I can only conclude that our featuring them last Sunday was by design and not a mistake.
A few years ago, possibly as an example of clairvoyance brought to the newspaper by a younger generation, a novice working Saturday night ran the traditional end-of-carnival photo of the Vulcans on the first Sunday of the carnival. That is the classic photo of the boys in their red suits accompanied by a second photo of them in the same configuration dressed in their street clothes.
I had a mild fit. OK, I had a pretty good fit. I found the offender and pointed out – I think it was a her – that a significant part of the legend kept the Vulcans unknown until the carnival was over. In the old days, I imagine that’s when smudged women looked at the photograph and said, “Yeah, that’s him, that’s the bum who got me.”
“Legend?” she said.
My heart sank. Yes, I said, legend. And I explained it to her in short form. I believe I mentioned that I have been sent recordings of the 1940 carnival. The coronation was covered live on the radio, and Boreas on that occasion, Joe Shiely, actually addressed the citizens of St. Paul as though they were his constituents. He had everything going for him save the ability to issue new taxes.
Last Saturday, before the Grande Day Parade, the Vulcans gave away 3,000 free handwarmers. You can make up your own line for that one. And then, per their custom, they had their inaugural dinner together at Mancini’s. In past years, before the troubles, they came into the place rip roaring and snorting, shooting their gun, blowing whistles, pouring on the old fealty to their Rex. Why, they couldn’t make it through dinner without uproarious interruption, various knightings, rhythmic demands to “Hail the Vulc!”
The last few years have been, well, quieter, as in church mouse. The unmasked fellows arrived this year without fanfare, went immediately to their table and ate their steaks like they were being filmed for a grade school health documentary about how many times you are supposed to chew before you swallow your food.
In the meantime, I was trying to explain to two college kids from out of state what was going on. They were good kids. They feigned interest, but what I was explaining had little to do with what they were observing. And there was a young guy at the table, too, whose mother terrifically gets into the spirit of such things. He wore saddle shoes and pants that had little snow skiers on them. He was dressed for a carnival, all right, and he was perfectly willing to be frightened out of his wits.
Alas, the fellows left as quietly as they had arrived.
“Was everything all right?” Pat Mancini wondered.
“The food was great,” we said, “but the theater was a little off.”
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 2 to 5:30 p.m. weekdays on KSTP AM 1500.
Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.
