MISQUAH — The parade stepped off from the school lot at eleven Saturday morning, ran down Second to Birch and out Main to the fairgrounds road, and took thirty-eight minutes to pass the corner by the hardware store, which is where this newspaper stands every year because Walt Sorensen puts two chairs out.

Ninety-one units, up from eighty-four. The Lakeside band led, in shorts, having played a concert eight days earlier and having agreed to this in a moment of weakness in June. The Legion color guard followed, with four seniors marching in the last thing they will do in a Post 162 uniform. The fire department brought both trucks and, for the first time since the arrangement began, the oak chair rode on the back of the pumper, upright, belted in, waving at nobody. The city has not commented.

New this year: a Mud Lake Brewing Co. unit consisting of a flatbed, a tapped keg not in use, and eleven people; a hand-lettered Forest Club sign reading HE’S BACK IN, which drew the biggest reaction of the parade; and, at the very end, behind everything, C. Bjornstad’s flatbed with the pumpkin on it under a tarp with the corner turned back, moving at four miles an hour. He had not planned to be in the parade. The parade marshal found him at the fairgrounds at 10:35 and asked. He said no. He was in it.

Candy distribution reached a level that two separate adults described as “irresponsible,” with the Mud Lake Association unit — Dorothy Knutson, a card table, and a hand-painted sign reading 214 ACRES, SPRING-FED — throwing what witnesses estimated at forty pounds of it. The Association had four walkers this year, up from one. Dr. Neuman’s dental office on Birch has declined to comment publicly and is, per the office, “booked solid in September regardless.”