Blade photographer Lee Merkle captured the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz looking fearfully at parade-goers as the downtown event opened the "Yule season” of 1956. 

In the Blade article from Nov. 24 of that year, it was noted 45,000 people attended the holiday parade and no vantage point was without gaggles of children to see the more than 50 balloons on display. One of which, unfortunately not photographed, was a rather plump depiction of a “sandman,” to which one little girl noted, “Ain’t he fat?”

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First Published November 18, 2019, 11:00 a.m.