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Commodore Doug Driver and the “sailors” execute a drill on Main Street during the 2024 Pleasanton Hometown Holiday Parade. (File photo by Chuck Deckert) 
The Balloon Platoon has traveled around the country and the world, including this visit to Washington D.C. for the Cherry Blossom Parade that celebrates the trees around the Tidal Basin. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
Pleasanton’s Balloon Platoon performs in a London parade. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
The Balloon Platoon marches in Piedmont’s Fourth of July Parade in 2014. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
Commodore Doug Driver leads the Balloon Platoon down Main Street during the 2024 Pleasanton Hometown Holiday Parade. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
The Balloon Platoon has entertained a few years at the Holiday Parade in San Diego, with its inflated balloon characters. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
Bill Potter catches some pre-parade rest. (Photo courtesy Balloon Platoon) 
The Balloon Platoon performs on Main Street during the 2024 Pleasanton Hometown Holiday Parade. (File photo by Chuck Deckert)
Few businesses or institutions last half a century, let alone a “precision” drill team entertaining crowds literally around the world.
The Balloon Platoon, the comic marching group from GraceWay Church (formerly Pleasanton Presbyterian and several similar names), celebrated its 50th anniversary recently with two of its favorite parades — the Apricot Festival in Patterson (in San Joaquin County) and Piedmont’s Fourth of July (followed by its traditional ice cream treats at Fenton’s).
The marching group grew out of the KNBR Radio Good Times parade that disc jockey Frank Dill threw for his morning co-host Mike Cleary to pay off a bet. The first parade took place in March 1974 and the church fellowship group, Mariner’s Ship 4, built a Viking rowing ship (named “Clyde”) for that hugely successful event. Former Pleasanton mayor “Smiling” Ed Kinney knew the right person to bring the parade to Main Street and the KNBR representatives thought it was perfect.
The first parade went so well with about 4,000 participants and an estimated 75,000 attendees packing downtown Pleasanton that a reprise was planned for the next year.
As Brad Hirst, a member of Ship 4, described it, they formed a committee to figure out an entry that wouldn’t involve so much construction. That group discussed the overweight Carol Burnett character and Dick Howard volunteered truck tire inner tubes. The Burnett character’s mop became the “weapon”.
Hirst recalled it had to be Navy because Camp Parks was an Army base. Ray Koski dubbed the group the Balloon Platoon and it stuck.
Howard, the first commodore and his wife Joanne, a dancer, worked out the various drills and the wives sewed together two queen sheets with a half-open back for access. The Balloon Platoon debuted in the second Good Times parade May 3, 1975. Once guys were suited up, bathroom visits were hazardous — more than one got caught in porta-potties over the years.
The original group included Frank Gottschalk, Jim Gregory, Hirst, Howard, Jim Kimball, Kinney, Koski, Tony Migliachio, Rob Montgomery, Leonard Mark, Farrell Pruett, Bob Stewart, Keith Sweet, Steve Thomas and Al Walburg.
Hirst said that they originally were going to do it on roller skates, but one rehearsal took care of that notion. Howard worked the group hard in practices leading up to the first parade and thereafter. He said they practiced at least 10 times before the first parade appearance and continued to have regular practices under Howard’s leadership.
“The better we were at short order drills, the funnier we were and the more people liked us,” Hirst said. He was the longest marching member, part of the original group who retired after 41 years. He will turn 87 this year and summed up why he liked participating so much, “You can’t put a price on fellowship.”
The group lined up, depending upon the width of the street two or three abreast going from the shortest to the tallest. That was quite a range from 5-foot-5 or 5-6 to 6-6. Mark took the key front-right position that set the marching cadence in response to Howard’s commands.
One of those front-row guys was teacher/coach Jimmy Fields, who turned 80 last month. He recalled that the front row of Mark, Chuck Maxon and he did a good job of staying in step and setting the cadence for those behind. On big local parades, particularly in the early years, they would have 20 or more guys suited up.
He marched in the Chinese New Year parade a few times, including a year when it rained. Typically, guys just wore shorts and a T-shirt under the costume so Fields remembers that as a cold, miserable march once the sheets got soaked through.
That Chinese New Year parade, Hirst said, was significant because a man who promoted groups to parades around the world saw them and connected. He was the bridge to invitations to Scotland for the Tattoo in Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Nice, Phoenix for the Festival Bowl, San Diego for the Holiday Bowl and Singapore.
They also went to Indianapolis for the parade the day before the Indy 500 and were the only non-band allowed to march around the Brickyard on race day with the selected marching bands.
Depending upon the arrangements, they sometimes got lodging covered and money for food, but they paid their own travel costs whether to Hong Kong, Scotland or Washington, D.C.
Hirst said Nice, France was notable because the organizers paid for lodging and provided money for food, but worked them hard with five appearances in seven days. They also insisted that the wives march as well, he said, the first and only time until the last year when a woman has been part of the marching group. GraceWay Pastor Mary Scott has marched in Patterson and Piedmont.
Back in the day, when the Raiders were still in Oakland, they would loosely team up with the Balloon Platoon in Piedmont. Their history books have pictures of the Raiderettes and Balloon Platoon members.
They have marched all over Northern California — Pacific Grove, San Francisco, Sacramento, Livermore, Walnut Creek and Ceres (probably missing some). They routinely chartered buses for parades around Northern California. Doug Driver and Hal Strunk have kept detailed records over the years and have three storage boxes full.
Driver and Bill Potter currently coordinate the activities. Pleasanton appearances were in the Alameda County Fair parade when it was held, the Hometown Holiday Parade and the occasional special event.
Columbus Day in San Francisco was a favorite because the streets were narrow, allowing good contact with the crowds and it often took place during Fleet Week so they would watch the Blue Angels perform after marching.
One year they took part in the Doo Dah parade, a knock-off of the Rose Parade produced by a bar in the Pasadena area. Hirst described it as somewhere between “vulgar and risque” and inappropriate for a group bearing a church banner.
Hirst said he and Howard both had gotten numerous calls over the years asking if they would share or franchise the Balloon Platoon. The answer was always a straight NO.
“I have done a lot of things and had a lot of fun — this is right up there near the top,” Hirst said.
One member, Paul Esser, who now is an ambassador walking the parade route and engaging with the crowd, saw the group while visiting from New Jersey more than 20 years ago. He moved to Pleasanton and started attending GraceWay Church. He was quite surprised when he learned it was the home of the Balloon Platoon he had seen decades earlier and joined up.
Although Hirst retired after 41 years, others have marched into their 90s.
Larry Caminiti, 94, is currently doing that. Dan Ashland, who turned 100 two years ago, marched into his 90s as did the late Hollis Beckett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force (World War II veteran) who was in the gym daily until passing at 99.
Notably, in the 50 years, there have only been five men who have worn the commodore’s hat and carried the toilet plunger to conduct the team.
Incidentally, in the first few parades Howard wore a hat made from a folded-up newspaper. Howard led the group for about 25 years before he retired and relocated to western Colorado. Dave Muck, equally tall as the former basketball player, took over. When he stepped aside, retired Navy captain Strunk took the plunger and then handed it off to the current team of another retired Naval Reserve captain Driver, and Robby Potter, son of coordinator Bill Potter. None are close to the physical stature of Howard or Muck.
There have been other father-son marchers, as well as a couple of occasions with three generations donning the inner tubes in the Terry Bedell and Howard Neely families. Father-son marchers include the families of: Doug Driver, Bill Potter, Phil Roush, John Houston and Frank Napoleon.
Strunk recalled his favorite parade as the Christmas event in London where organizers put them up in a Hyde Park hotel. He said they had about 18 marchers so the pinwheel filled the street.
During the parade he had a great time “low-fiving” spectators along the route. The next morning, he got a call from his daughter who lives in Sacramento telling him his photo was in the Sacramento Bee. Several other calls followed from friends who had seen his photo in their local papers after it was distributed by a wire service.
Photographers routinely found the group the most photogenic entry in parades so newspaper photos and TV news clips were common.
The group traditionally meets once a year to plan the parade schedule, enjoy fellowship and conduct whatever necessary business. The finale is a slide show of members who have gone home to their Heavenly reward, a total of 33 over the years. It invariably brings tears as guys and wives recall them.
Editor’s note: Journalist Tim Hunt is a longtime member of GraceWay Church and marched with the Balloon Platoon for a season. A favorite memory is marching with a small group at the St. Francis Yacht Club when a traditional 12-meter America’s Cup yacht sailed into the club lagoon.
