The St Aloysius Celebration

The Waldfeucht King and Queen


A local youth band...do the uniforms ring a bell?


Another local village band


German dudes in cool hats....


more German dudes with even cooler hats!!


September 10th, 2006

Here in Germany there are about as many festivals and events as there are days in the year. In fact, it would be quite correct to say that the Germans love a parade. I have had more parades go past my home in the last year than they have at Disney Land…OK… so that’s a slight exaggeration, but there sure are a lot of parades when you consider the size of my village.

The start of fall marks the beginning of the carnival season and along with that comes parades for all reasons. The most recent parade in my village was for the St Aloysius Celebration on September 10th. St Aloysius is the patron saint of children, so I don’t know what he had to do with the actual activities. This event was tied in with a shooting competition that takes place in most of the other villages and it when the village King and Queen are crowned. Once you earn that title you are commented to throwing a huge ball at the local village hall and you have to march in all of the other village parades with all of the local village bands.

Here in Bocket, the St Aloysius Celebration lasted for 4 days. There was the coronation ball, which ended at 2am on a Thursday night. I know this because the village band accompanied the King home at the end of the night. Then there was the full on royal parade. I enjoyed seeing all of the Germans dressed up in their Sunday best, band uniforms, and ball gowns as they strolled down my street. There was another party the night of that parade and then the King’s Ball both which also lasted into the wee hours of the morning. You would be surprised how far oompah-pah music carries.

On the last day of the celebration the King and Queen, along with the local village band, the event organizers, and village elders walk the parade route in reverse. I think that next year I’ll just throw on a formal and join them. I can be the Alaskan Salmon Queen.