The Whittier Daily News reports that the annual Route 66 Parade in Duarte, Calif., is in danger of being canceled because of a lack of volunteers.

At a Wednesday meeting to fill 18 parade committee chairmanships, only 10 people signed up, including for the two top posts of parade chairman and treasurer.

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Jim Kirchner, the former parade chairman, said that if there are no more volunteers, the parade’s coordinating committee will decide Feb. 27 if there will be an 11th annual parade and car show Sept. 16, to mark the 80th anniversary of Route 66’s opening.

“I’ll report to the coordinating committee on the success of this meeting,” he said. “They may decide to put it on the shelf for a year.”

That wouldn’t be a totally bad thing, Kirchner said, because next year will be Duarte’s 50th birthday, and it would give them more time to plan the city’s golden anniversary celebration.

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“We’re at a serious crossroad,” he added. “Attendance is down, too. The 2004 parade had more people in it than people watching it. It’s embarrassing to see those large gaps in the crowd.”

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If the parade is canceled, it will mark the end of a 10-year tradition, the nation’s only annual parade to honor the highway that made possible America’s 20th-century mass migration to the West Coast.

Andrew Gilstrap of Pop Matters is traveling to the Southwest with what he hopes is a bunch of appropriate music (Calexico, Giant Sand, Frank Sinatra).

In an age when America seems to be becoming increasingly homogenized, he’s looking for “genuineness.” In Arizona and New Mexico, he’s optimistic he’ll find it:

I’ve selected my music based on preconceptions about the area, and from a hope that some of the region’s character still remains, a hope that we’ll still find something among casinos and old Route 66 ghost towns that counts as the “authentic” American Southwest.

As it turns out, New Mexico and Arizona have plenty of everything. If you want to follow parts of old Route 66, you can swing from booming little towns capitalizing on the tourism dollars of people getting their kicks, to boarded-up motels and gas stations in what can only be described as wastelands. In population centers like Albuquerque and Santa Fe, the old historic town centers serve double-duty as shopping areas crowded with enough turquoise to fill the Grand Canyon. The housing boom is obvious, but at least until we start heading further north, the developers seem to be holding to the traditional forms and styles; in Santa Fe, even the parking garages look like mighty adobe structures of old.

Go read it. It’s quite thought-provoking.

I have to give the folks in Waynesville, Mo., a lot of credit. Last year, they applied for a grant to install historic lighting over the Roubidoux Creek Bridge, which is part of Route 66. The grant application was rejected.

So did Wayneville officials give up? No, they look the lessons learned from their failed attempt and are going to apply again. This time, they’re more optimistic the bridge project is going to happen. Best of all, Route 66’s recent designation as a scenic byway may help the project receive additional funding.

This excellent report from the Waynesville Daily Guide has the details.