Yes, there are in fact bears on the streets.

We were up in the small town of Hudson for the weekend with Matt and Helen and there was a suggestion to go to a parade. I am always up for a parade. 

This parade was, I'm going to say, sparsely spectated. It was like the four of us and ten locals standing on a corner just ahead of the appointed hour. We could hear a little music, but the parade still appeared to be a long ways off.

Then someone sees this:

it's a bear casually using the crosswalk

 

We all thought this was really funny. Just some rando bear strolling down main street mid-afternoon. "What?" An old guy we didn't know chuckles, "A BEAR on the street? Whoever heard of such a thing!"

Me and my crew all kinda looked at each other because. Yeah. We'd all seen many many bears on the street.

In the other world known as downtown New York City, a bear is a furry, usually not slender gent of a certain orientation. You can always tell it's Bear Week when there's lots of them in leather togs with buckles out on the sidewalk at about 11 am looking like they've been up for about four days.

a "happy bear"

Chelsea is the home of Bear Week. It's a long weekend of frisky fun with events like "Roar on the River." Whoever comes up with these names is a genius. Bear Week goes down in the fall every year and even as an innocent bystander, I kinda look forward to it. Definitely a jubilant vibe.

So yeah, I personally have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of bears on the street.

Anyway, turns out, the bear in Hudson had nothing to do with the parade, and also absolutely nothing to do with the other kind of bears.

"mad hatters" parading on the streets of Hudson.
People are awesome, I loved this so much.