The end of a tradition?

Albany held its annual Pride parade today. The event held special significance because the gay community and its sympathizers are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riot this year. I can hear the parade, and the arrival of the crowd anticipating it, from my house a block parallel to the parade route. I've taken video of the parade for the past couple of years because I liked the juxtaposition of the celebrants with the archaic rage of the handful of religious-right protesters who showed up yearly to heckle the march. They used to set up with their signs and their megaphone in front of a gas station along the route, facing the marchers just as they turned right from Lark Street (the self-styled Greenwich Village of Albany) onto Madison Avenue. Last year, the hecklers moved (or were moved) to the Dana Park pedestrian island. It was only a short distance from their old spot, but it presumably kept enough distance between the hecklers and the spectators to discourage potentially dangerous confrontations. It also put the hecklers behind the police line that diverted traffic away from the parade route. This year I saw no hecklers either in front of the gas station or at Dana Park. I walked along Madison to the entrance to Washington Park, where Pride celebrations would continue after the parade, and found no hecklers. Unless they set up shop somewhere on Lark, I have to guess that they simply didn't show. That leaves me wondering whether they simply gave up or were somehow discouraged from making their annual appearance. Either way, their absence probably looked like a victory to those who remembered and resented their presence in the past. I confess that their disappearance stripped the event of much of the drama that made it entertaining for me. On the other hand, the annual event was never supposed to be the Drama parade, and if the lack of hecklers made things more enjoyable for the majority of spectators, any regret I have would be petty, especially when I most likely share the majority's opinion of the hecklers. Progress inevitably will render many dramas less dramatic, and history inevitably will start new dramas as it continues on its way.