Sunday was a great sunny day for the Puerto Rican Day Parade, but I had no intention of going to the celebration. Even if I hadn’t been attending the funeral service of one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, Sidney Goldberg, the thought of attending what was being touted as the largest parade yet was not the least bit enticing. My ferry ride into Manhattan with about a thousand raucous, flag-waving celebrants made me grateful that I was traveling up to the West Side and they were heading toward Fifth Avenue.

I’ve never been a fan of ethnic parades. I don’t really see the point in any of them, and I’ve never understood why they are still held on Fifth Avenue. The last time I was at the parade, two years ago, I was appalled at the wooden barriers erected in front of some of the apartment buildings. Mayor Bloomberg has appealed to the owners of those buildings not to insult Puerto Ricans. I can’t blame the building owners for trying to protect their property if the damage occurs only during the Puerto Rican Day Parade. But why not have the parade organizers take responsibility for the damages or provide security measures to prevent it in the first place? Just asking.

Most of the revelers in the ferry terminal were very young and behaved much like a rowdy crowd fueled with alcohol going to a sporting event. Yelling “boricua, boricua,” they were boisterous and obnoxious. One Puerto Rican woman on her way to work shook her head, saying, “They have no class.”

But neither do those college kids on spring break in Florida or Cancun.

Much as I disapprove of the crowd’s behavior, I cringe when critics condemn the waving of the Puerto Rican flag as unpatriotic. Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States. In great numbers, they have fought and died in combat for this nation.

When I first met Sidney Goldberg two years ago, he was in his bathrobe and his wife, Lucianne, was in a muumuu. They were broadcasting her Internet talk show from their West Side apartment, and I was along for the ride and a possible column.

One of the first things that endeared me to him was his terrific sense of humor, and I quickly discovered a certain camaraderie with another native New Yorker who had also never learned to drive. That quirk is unique to those of us who grew up in a city where a car is totally unnecessary. Although Lucianne may have found his lack of automotive proficiency strange, Sidney and I shared the same sense of relief from the responsibility of sitting behind the wheel.

“Countless lives have been spared by the fact that I don’t drive,” he said with a laugh.

It was that sense of humor that many of those gathered in the Riverside Memorial Chapel remembered as the relatives and friends eulogizing their beloved Sidney related sample after sample of his wit and wisdom. The crowded room would erupt in gales of laughter, which I’m sure would have been music to Sidney’s ears.

From his sons, Joshua and Jonah, we heard how much Sidney valued his family and how much he will be missed. Jonah noted the odd pairing of his parents: Sidney, the Jewish conservative from the Bronx, and Lucianne, the Episcopalian Southern JFK liberal. At her birthday party in April, Lucianne said she knew when she first met Sidney that she would marry him because “he made me laugh.”

I wish I had spent more time with Sidney because he possessed a valuable trait that so many political pundits seem to lack. It’s the ability to disagree in a civil fashion. Sidney used to say that as a conservative in the news business – he was senior vice president for syndication at United Media – he felt as if he were working behind enemy lines. He compared his position to that of an early Christian working a concession stand at the Coliseum.

I had the impression that many of those in the room who knew Sidney from the days when he was a young liberal did not follow his journey to the far right, but they still loved him. That’s because he was never mean and he never ranted. Howard Dean could have learned a lot from him.

So could I.