Born To March

Born To March
Every which way I turn these days, someone is either about to march, or, has just marched. Marching seems to be the 'in' thing, although, thinking about it, I'm sure it never actually went 'out'.
In post-war England, we were pretty much expected to stomp straight out of the womb ready to march. I never knew what for. Still, I was a dandy little marcher in my day, goosestepping my way around our semi-detached council house wearing a tin hat and banging a toy drum. Later, as a somewhat disturbed adolescent, I remember marching alongside the annual Lions parade rattling a bucket for loose change – a bucket that once full of said loose change, I absconded with. And again, as an even more disturbed young adult with the right to vote, and drink, I can remember marching with the big red-faced men all wearing steel-toed boots on a Sunday morning. I think they were marching for England. Still, I only liked the sound all those boots made on otherwise quiet pavements.
In juvey, where I was attending her Majesty's pleasure, I remember being called an 'exemplary marcher', and, that is high praise indeed in England. But, my marching days evaporated, as marching days do, and, it was only many years later when I stumbled bedraggled and badly made up into the queer scene, where my interest in marching somewhat reignited. Marching is about as big in the queer scene, as it in China. And thus, we come full circle right back to all those people talking to me about marching in the present tense.
I understand the allure of it. The comradeship. The opportunity to be overt and en masse. The call of the sequin, the latex, the feather boa. Recently, seeing some footage of the 'Mardi Gras', I wondered why they still refer to it as Sydney's 'Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras', why not, just the 'Mardi Gras'. Insofar as I'm aware, many people who aren't gay, lesbian, or, even interested in being gay or lesbian, have, year-by-year, continued to swell the numbers of what has become, more of a general carnival than a strictly queer one. Let's face it, the hets have a lot of parades, but, they don't feel the need to have something like a 'Heterosexual Mardi Gras' where soccer mums push those aerodynamic three-baby-buggies and men wearing blue singlets with chesty Bonds pride push Victa lawnmowers, do they? Indeed. No one is proud to be Het. They just are. We are just queer, but, seemingly, we have to be proud to be so. My 21st Century question, is why? Why can't we just be. Just do it.