Hot dogs may not be traditional fare on St. Patrick’s Day, but they’ll have ample representation in Cedar Rapids on March 17 this year, because the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile will be joining SaPaDaPaSo Saint Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday.
This will be the first time one of the vehicles in what Oscar Meyer calls its “meat fleet,” will be appearing in the parade, which the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Society of Cedar Rapids, or SaPaDaPaSo, has held annually since 1978. SaPaDaPaSo is known for marching whether the weather is fair or foul. The only year it hasn’t taken to the streets was 2020, when the rapid spread of COVID-19 caused the cancellation of St. Patrick’s Day festivities in Cedar Rapids and across Iowa.
The Wienermobile will make four stops for meet-and-greets at Hy-Vees in Cedar Rapids in the days leading up to the parade. The 60-hot-dog-long vehicle (according to Oscar Mayer’s official Wienermobile site) will be at the Hy-Vee on Johnson Avenue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, and an hour later it will be at the Hy-Vee on Wilson Avenue, where the Hot-Doggers who staff the Wienermobile will be giving tours and handing out Wienermobile whistles until 5 p.m. On Friday, it’ll be at the Hy-Vee on Oakland Road from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then at the Edgewood Road location from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
The first Wienermobile debuted in Chicago in 1936. Carl Mayer, Oscar’s nephew, came up with the idea. He thought it would be an entertaining way to promote the company’s “German-style wieners.” That original Wienermobile was dismantled and donated to a scrap metal collection drive during World War II. The company revived the Wienermobile in the ’50s, and today there are six 27-foot-long wieners on wheels touring the country on a more-or-less continual basis.
On Saturday, the Wienermobile will head up to Dyersville to participate in that city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. Of course, Saturday isn’t actually St. Patrick’s Day, Sunday is. If parade organizers in Dyersville want an Irish saint whose feast day actually lines up with their parade, there is one available.
According to the Catholic Church’s Calendar of Saints, March 16 is the feast day of St. Fintan the Leper, who was active a few decades after Patrick. Of course, incorporating a reference to leprosy into the name of a parade — legend says Fintan cured a boy of leprosy by miraculously transferring the disease to himself — may not help with parade turnout. Or hot dog sales. But that doesn’t matter because Dyersville is sticking with the St. Patrick’s Day name. The parade starts at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. The parade in Cedar Rapids starts at 1 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day.
