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FAIRBANKS -- I wrote in this space Saturday morning about how rotten the weather was going to be for the parade, and you see what happened.

Umbrellas and rain jackets? We didn’t need no stinking umbrellas.

Had I written with a sunnier disposition, the results might not have been so positive.

Highlights of the parade for me included the moving organ music. It was played by Mary Ellen Koeller, representing St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, on a trailer with auxiliary power that was pulled by a truck. A real mix of technology and art.

I also liked the Red Hackle Pipe Band, the Fairbanks Community Band, the 9th Army Band and the band of volunteers who walked or rode the route to entertain their neighbors.

I apologize to Gladys Terry for telling her that the Sons of Norway float was not listed on the sheet in front of me. I write this to explain to the people who waited for her that she turned around and went home instead of taking her place on the float.

I watched the parade with my daughters and my wife on First Avenue, where I enjoyed a bowl of booyah from St. Matthew’s and met up with my old friend, the Rev. Jim Kolb.

I was next to a young guy named Sawyer, a blond toddler who eagerly soaked up the parade atmosphere and had it all over his hands and face.

He sat on the curb and rubbed his hands in the dust as he played. He was moving a Matchbox-like car back and forth, and I could almost see his imagination at work.

I was glad that it wasn’t my job to watch him, but his mom took care of that.

It reminded me of going to a Golden Days Parade 20 years ago when my son did almost exactly the same thing, captivated by the tiny toy cars he liked to push around and taking a good deal of dirt home with him.

I took a photo of the boy that I would like to e-mail to his mom, but I wrote her e-mail down wrong, and I’d like her to call me so I can send it.

The parade winners, selected by me, my daughter Aileen and Rick Solie, included: The Vernon L. Nash Antique Automobile Club, Sue Hull for State House, the Girl Scouts, the Silver Spur, the Goddesses of Fairbanks, the Pioneers of Alaska — with King and Queen Bill and Nancy Mendenhall — and the Future Farmers of America. The first place award went to the Filipino American Society of Fairbanks.

That the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays entry was right in front of the Bible Baptist Church entry said something to me about the diversity of Fairbanks. Rep. Don Young rode in a car near the front of the parade, waving to lots of people, while Sen. Ted Stevens walked with a fairly large group of supporters, shaking hands with people on both sides of the street.

Tim Beck, he of the green beard, was on a four-wheeler that provided a scooping service. I thought the Clean Elections Initiative entry featured the world’s most patient pig, which had a green dollar sign painted on it and appeared to be perfectly happy standing still in a little wagon.

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STAYING AFLOAT: The key thing in the KUAC Red Green River Regatta is to stay afloat and preserve your dignity.

Along with the other regatta judges, we will be looking for entries that don’t sink within sight of the starting line this morning at the Graehl boat landing at 11 a.m.

And as a reminder, please don’t use any Styrofoam that will break into small pieces. Last year, we saw too many vessels that gave off hundreds of tiny bits of Styrofoam that were an unwelcome addition to the Chena.

Another race set for today is the Golden Days Bathtub Race, set for 2 p.m. in Gold Rush Town in Pioneer Park. That’s likely to be a bit less tiring for many than the 42nd annual Gold Discovery Run this morning, a 16.5-mile jaunt that starts at 8 a.m. not far from the Fort Knox gold mine and ends in Fox.

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PEDRO MONUMENT: The oldest Golden Days tradition, the rededication of the Pedro Monument on the Steese Highway, takes place today at 3 p.m. at Mile 16.5. The public is invited.

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ENERGY TOURISTS: Proponents of drilling in ANWR are doing a disservice to the public when they continue to claim that the goal is to drill on a “2,000-acre site,” as the drilling would be spread out over a large area, depending on where the oil happens to be.

Drilling proponents don’t help their case by acting as if the oil work would be confined to one tiny tract of land.

It would be more accurate to say drilling could be spread out over an area that makes up about 10 percent of the 19-million-acre refuge.

The latest comment about a “2,000-acre site” is from House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who is leading what the GOP calls its “American Energy Tour,” which is supposed to proceed from Fairbanks to the North Slope today.

This 2,000-acre site assertion is similar to the claim that the trans-Alaska pipeline covers 12 square miles of Alaska. It’s more than a bit misleading.

Opponents of drilling are doing their own statistical sleight-of-hand with the claim that the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is the “best source for Alaskan oil,” and that it would be easier to develop.

ANWR has long been described as the best on-shore oil prospect in the United States.

House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer was quoted as saying that “According to experts, the (National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska) holds more oil than the Arctic Refuge, with an estimated 10.6 billion barrels to 10.4 billion barrels.”

The USGS did say six years ago that, “The volumes of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimated for NPRA in this assessment are similar to the volumes estimated for the ANWR study area in 1998.”

“At market prices above $35 per barrel, estimates of economically recoverable oil for the two areas are similar,” USGS said.

But the agency gave this note of caution about its projections for these billions of barrels of undiscovered oil.

“The similarities between these estimates may be misleading, however, because of differences in accumulation sizes (the ANWR study area is estimated to contain more accumulations in larger size classes) and differences in assessment area (the NPRA study area is more than 12 times larger than the ANWR study area).”

That’s 24 million acres, compared to nearly 2 million acres in ANWR. In neither location is oil thought to be spread out in a uniform pattern. And in neither location has the oil actually been discovered, which is an important thing to remember.