Eighty-five years after participating in his first Flossmoor Bike Parade, Al Wagner served as grand marshal in the annual parade on July 4.

Wagner’s first parade came before his first birthday. He was born late in 1939 and participated in the 1940 bike parade.

“I have a picture of my sister on a bicycle and I’m in the basket in the front,” he said. “I don’t remember that. I was there.”

Wagner is not only a lifelong Flossmoor resident, he has made significant contributions to the Foundation for the Preservation of Flossmoor History, especially the donation to the foundation of his former home and business location at 2709 Flossmoor Road.

The building, which was home to A.L. Wagner & Co. Real Estate for many years, is considered the village’s oldest commercial building and currently serves as the foundation’s headquarters. Records from the companies files are a trove of historical data.

Wagner rode in John Beele’s convertible. Beele is the commander of the Wally Burns VFW Post and a longtime Flossmoor resident.

Another bike parade veteran at the event was Kris Condon of Homewood, who is also a Flossmoor history buff. She remembered participating in the parade as a child, although the last time she did was 1965, she said.

She was able to play a part in this year’s parade nevertheless. She was watching from near the future site of the Flossmoor Veterans Memorial on the east side of the viaduct when she noticed that Aubrey Davis struggling to get enough momentum to get up the hill. She dashed out to give Aubrey a boost.

“We’ve all been like that before. She didn’t want to ask for any help but she was stuck,” Condon said.

She said as part of her history work she discovered video of the first bike parade in 1930. Her father, Richard Condon, can be seen riding his bike past the camera, she said. 

Her dad lived with his family in an apartment in the village’s iconic Civic Center in the mid-1930s, just a few years after the building was constructed by Wagner’s father and uncle. 

Kris Condon’s most recent book, “Fragments of Flossmoor,” is a collection of little-known vignettes from Flossmoor history.  

This year’s parade also made some history. For the first, the destination was not the downtown traffic circle. Because a downtown streetscape rebuild project was expected to start in late June, the parade went under the Flossmoor Road viaduct and ended at Western Avenue School and the Flossmoor Park ball fields. 

There, many in the crowd enjoyed ice cream and socializing with neighbors while kids rode bikes on the playground and played a few pickup whiffle ball games. 

Eleanor O’Shea, a Homewood-Flossmoor High School junior, sang the national anthem.