1740 Dragon Paddlers

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Dragon Boat Festival. This was especially enjoyable for me, as I was born in the year of the Dragon. I believe I carry the spirit of the dragon within me, and have had that confirmed on many occasions when folks have told me I have dragon breath.
The Dragon Boat Festival featured competitions between various dragon boat rowing teams and cultural performances on the main stage at the Port Plaza.
The teams had fun names, usually involving the word paddle, like "Paddlers of Fury." One of the SMU teams was the SMUth Paddlers. Difficult for announcers to say, as it was spelled S-M-U-t-h. We are trained to say the t-h- different with the o-o- in smooth than with the u- in truth.
The team from Apple Physical Therapy had no name, just headbands with an Apple logo on them. I suggested they call themselves the iPaddlers.
The cultural presentations were good too. One group I've seen in other venues. They also had a hard name for announcers, Quetzalcoatl, after the Aztec creator deity, normally depicted as a feathered serpent, and not unlike a dragon.
The dancers wore quite impressive traditional costumes, with long feathers and shell leg adornments. When I've seen them before they performed on an indoor stage and were able to go barefoot. This time they were on rough concrete.
Which forced them to wear different kinds of shoes. A couple of the women were dancing quite vigorously in open-backed sandals. Which helped show how important the study of history and culture is to putting us in touch with our roots. Nice to know even ancient Aztec women wore impractical footwear.
At the end of the day we were all pretty tired.
We were really dragon.
America ya gotta love it.