After more than 25 years as the emcee of the Reading Holiday Parade, Charles J. Adams III gets to lead the march this year. “It’s such an honor after emceeing it for all those years,” Adams said. “But I think that giant screeching sound you may have heard is them scraping the bottom of the barrel. Honestly, I was almost in tears. I can’t wait to wave at everyone.” The parade starts on Saturday at 9 a.m. at 11th and Penn streets and continues down Penn to Second Street, ending at about noon. New this year will be an area at Fifth and Penn streets where some groups can stop and perform.
Despite his self-deprecating comments, Adams has more than earned the honor to lead the parade he emceed for more than a quarter-century. In fact, some of his fondest memories are of standing in all sorts of weather waiting for Santa’s arrival in Reading. “We had the normal swings in temperature,” he said. “There was one time when it was 15 degrees out there. Literally my lips were freezing together. Then other times it was so warm that I was taking off layer after layer of clothing. It’s all really just a matter of coping with what happens.” A particular honor, he said, was getting to chat with Pittsburgh Pirates hall-of-famer Willie Stargell. “I am such a huge baseball fan, so it was a real hoot when he was the grand marshal, and really just horsing around with that guy is probably my fondest memory,” Adams said. There were issues every year that the public didn’t know about, he said: grand marshals who were late, marching groups who were out of order. “The sound system was notorious for failing,” he said. “Or it wasn’t pointing in the right direction. But really, it was always so well-organized that all problems were immediately rectified.”
He credits volunteers, including Reading Eagle Company employee Dana Hoffman, for keeping things moving.
“Dana was my left hand person,” he said. “She kept things moving so by the time things got up to the podium I was announcing the right people.”
Even the inevitable gaps in the parade were smoothed over by Adams well-known brand of humor.
“I would just tell people those were the ghosts of Berks County marching,” he said.
Although he retired from his radio show on WEEU 830 AM, Berks County’s only locally owned radio station, last year, Adams is still busy telling and writing his ghost stories, leading ghost tours and making divining rods.
“(Retirement) lets me spend more time doing those things,” he said. “But I don’t really like to sleep, so I’ve got even more time.”
Charles Broad, executive director of the Downtown Improvement District, which sponsors the parade, said events actually get started Friday night with the tree-lighting ceremony.
That begins at 6:30 p.m. when Reading Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer lights the tree at the intersection of Fifth and Penn streets. Free hot chocolate and cookies will be provided by Outside In Restaurant, and live music will be provided by city elementary schools and church choirs. The 20-plus-foottall tree is from a farm in Auburn, Schuylkill County.
Saturday morning’s parade promises to draw more than 10,000 onlookers who’ll get to see marching bands, civic and youth organizations, nonprofit groups and a large helium balloon, which debuted last year. And of course, the jolly old elf himself.
“We’re fortunate to have so much support and enthusiasm for both the tree-lighting ceremony and the parade,” Broad said. “And we are privileged to have Charlie Adams serve as our parade marshal. Charlie has a huge following in this area.”
Adams said he’s up to the task, too.
“I’ve rented a couple of movies of the Queen (Elizabeth II) so I can get that queenie wave,” he said. “And I’ve practiced dealing with the paparazzi.”