After 31 consecutive years at the head of a wagon train that has become a signature entry in the Belton Fourth of July Parade, Dr. Will Long, 88, will cede the controls this Saturday to his 63-year-old son, Dr. Bill Long.
Rather than manning the lawnmower that pulled the 32-wagon train last year, Long the elder will be riding alongside the train in a golf cart this year.
It’s a move that has been forced upon him after he fell twice this year, breaking each hip within about a three-month span.
“I really had plans to keep doing it as long as I could,” Long said. “I didn’t realize something so dramatic would end my driving career.”
While the train will continue to roll down the street, the number of wagons connected to it will be reduced by more than a third, a move based on logistics more than anything else.
Long the younger has traditionally manned the last wagon on the train, the one equipped with a break to prevent wagon pile-ups during downhill portions on the route. He doesn’t have experience pulling the 20 wagons he will pull on Saturday and there aren’t very many places to practice such a feat. It was decided by the family that prudence should be applied.
“I’ve been getting all the tips but as far as practice, I think I’ll be praying and hoping everything goes all right the first time out,” Long said.
Long the younger sees his turn at the head of the train as a temporary one.
“We’re hoping to get him (his father) rehabilitated in time for next year’s parade,” he said. “I’ll continue if he is unable to do it. We have plans to keep it going in the future.”
When asked why he would perpetuate the tradition his father started, Long the younger talks about what the train and the parade has meant to him.
“One of the most important things for America is strong families,” he said. “This is one of the ways of showing pride in our family and in America. Families are the fabric that holds America together.”
Long the elder would be happy to hear his son utter those words. He is determined to make a full recovery but he said he knows that nothing is guaranteed when you’re an 88-year-old man.
“I realize I don’t have all that many years to go,” he said. “I am living on borrowed time. Whether my son is going to take it over on a permanent basis, I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. I don’t know whether he’ll have enough interest or not.”
This year, like last year, there will be four generations of Longs riding in the wagon train. The crowd will likely give them the usual rousing response.
But the man who first strung trains together as a boy and eventually started a tradition that a generation of Beltonians have grown up on will take it all in from a golf cart that tracks the train’s every move.
Along the route, the family will pass the Children’s Advocacy Center building, where Dr. Long used to practice.
Each year parade watchers gather on the property in the shade of large oaks that Dr. Long planted there years ago for that purpose.
As a man who this year has learned the value of living life to the fullest, it just might be a blessing in disguise that he won’t be able to drive the train.
It will give him time to ponder about how his trees, traditions and family will endure and bless the Belton community long after he rides off into the sunset.
