(This story comes to the HuffPost via the OC Register. For accompanying Podcast and slideshow, visit the WORK page at the OC Register)
GLENDALE She pulls on a second pair of socks and squeezes her feet into the white New Balance sneakers. Debbie Bovshow learned her lesson yesterday.
What time is it? Oh, 6:30 a.m., time enough to down the last of the Lucky Charms and throw on a UCLA sweatshirt over the two other layers she's wearing.
Monday morning's temperature is 45 degrees - a good 10 degrees higher than yesterday's cold morning. But the layers are still required, because the cold from those barn floors can creep up your legs. The devil's in the details for this woman who revels in details.
Bovshow is one of the tens of thousands of people you will never see during the Rose Bowl Parade on Friday - the volunteers. But Bovshow's role is significant this year. The longtime scoutmaster is the chairwoman in charge of design and construction for the Boy Scouts of America float, the first time in 40 years the Boy Scouts have launched an entry in the Tournament of Roses Parade. The adventure-themed float is the kickoff to the Boy Scouts 100th anniversary.
The gig is an intense dose of work up to a tight deadline: today's judging. Bovshow's staying at a Glendale hotel so she can get to the decorating barns in Pasadena by 8 a.m. and works to 11 p.m. most nights. It's a labor of love for her - and she must love it since she's not being paid for the 15-hour days.
"I want to say it's a passion, but I enjoy being able to see the kids having fun, being able to decorate the float, having the new experiences," she said. "This year, taking something from the very conception and having it go all the way to when I see it going down Colorado Boulevard, that's going to be an awesome thrill for me."
Now 51, Bovshow, who lives in Buena Park, first became involved in Scouting 20 years ago, when she was looking for an activity to do with her then 7-year-old son, Jason.
"When I first got into Scouting it was because I was a single mom, and I wanted to find something that was going to have my son and I being a part of doing something together," she said. "I felt it was vital for our relationship that we had something in common."
The common cause Bovshow created took hold. Jason Bovshow, now 27, ultimately earned Boy Scout's highest honor, Eagle Scout, and is still involved and will be marching with a group of 300 Eagle Scouts near the float on Friday.
If she's no longer the mom in charge of her adult son, Bovshow likens her job this week to a mom watching over her flock. The flock arrives in the dozens and in shifts, as troops from Orange County, Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley have worked for weeks to help decorate the float. Bovshow meets with them outside the decorating barn and lays down the law: no eating or drinking near the float, no cell phones, a half-hour lunch break.
The bulk of Bovshow's job appears to be something her friends tell her she's good at: talking. Maybe it's the energy created by the Lucky Charms, but the woman never stops talking, never stops directing, never stops cheerily greeting other members of what becomes a small town around the Rose Bowl each year. That's why she's in charge - she's the troubleshooter who works between the Scouts and the company that designed and helped build the float, Phoenix Decorating Co.
No detail is too small - that piece won't stick to the float so we need to change the glue. Or too large - we should have the boys practice marching in the streets to get it perfect. In fact, there are so many details, her son has been teasing her about being the person in charge of building the float who never puts a single flower on it.
Bovshow has the time to dedicate to the float building because she's on an avocation vacation, of sorts. Laid off from her job at California Panel and Veneer, a Cerritos company, in February, she's been working part-time at a Home Depot in Garden Grove. She's been on disability from that job for the last few weeks because of an ankle injury and will return to work next Monday.
Having safely guided her son through Scouts, Bovshow is now enjoying the rewards of what an adult can achieve in the organization. She recently took a group of people on an expedition to Zion National Park in Utah and she's a volunteer in charge of activities for the Orange County district.
And despite her son's teasing, Bovshow finally got to the single detail she's been worried about all week. On Tuesday morning, she climbed up on the scaffolding and helped plant red and white carnations in a piece of the float built to look like the American flag. Placing them much more carefully than she did her many layers of clothing, Bovshow saw the beauty before it floats down Colorado Boulevard.
"It's going to look like a carpet," she said.