Tell Us About: Festivals!

It’s time for another Global Writing Challenge prompt. Our current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Rosie Amber, Within a World of My Own, and me. Guess what? Leslie is back! She’s now blogging on Substack. We have another possibility but are still waiting to hear definitively. Debbie chose this month’s theme, and I can’t wait to read her post. As I’m writing this, we are in the hospital. Nigel’s hip replacement revision didn’t quite go as planned. I’ve already written tomorrow’s Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot so you can read more about it there if you want (but not until after 9:30pm). I write that only to say I am behind on reading and commenting on others’ blogs. So, I beg your forgiveness for that if you are a blogger. I love the Global Writing Challenge because it’s always fun to see what others come up with…the responses rarely repeat.  On top of the wonderfully different opinions and thoughts, the writing itself is wonderful! I hope you’ll visit all of these blogs because you are going to be amazed at, not only the diversity of ideas, but the stories of each person. There’s also a link party at the end of this post!

If you’d like to join us, here are the prompts for the next couple of months:

• April – Dreams
• May – Water

Ok, so festivals…this is probably going to be the absolute shortest post I have written in years. I am, as most of you know, an extroverted introvert. I really don’t like going to places, parties, etc, but once I’m there, I’m probably going to be OK. That means I didn’t ever really attend any kind of big old festivals. But, I will give this one caveat. I surely do wish I’d been old enough to have gone to Woodstock! I think that would have been something…except for that introversion…I would probably have been sitting in my car at the far end of the road and only heard a distant roar from the festival!

My hometown…

I grew up in a very small place. When I was younger, I think the population was around 5,000-6,000. We didn’t exactly roll up the sidewalks at sundown, but there wasn’t exactly a happening nightlife there, either. But, we did have one big thing each year. We had an almost week long event called “Old Settlers.” Now, if I had more time, I’d dig into the history of it because I’m sure there is some. But, what I was most interested in were the rides that came into town. The main street (though it wasn’t Main Street) was blocked off as were the first blocks of some of the side streets. There were all kinds of rides, kiddie rides as well as adult rides and the in-between rides. I’m sure some of you have the same kind of thing happening in your towns and cities. These people would come in one night and, over the course of the night and next day, set up those rides. Now, I shudder to think about riding a Ferris Wheel set up like that, but I loved it back then.

A little more…

Another part of Old Settlers was the BINGO tent. I loved that because I love to play BINGO. I need to get Nigel to take me to play it sometime. Anyway, it wasn’t free so I didn’t get to play for hours, but I did play a couple of times. I don’t remember if I ever won anything, though. And, the food…oh, my goodness! There was this guy who always set up on the northwest corner of the courthouse square (which was really quite a lovely place) and sold corndogs. There was always a long, long line for them. That was really the only food I liked. Nigel liked the lemonade shakeups, but it was just a corndog for me, thank you very much. On the Thursday of that week, the “old settlers” would register, and an announcement would be made of the oldest person there who had registered. I don’t think they got anything other than recognition.

Finally…

The festival ran from Tuesday through Saturday night (really very early Sunday morning). On Friday, there would be the big parade. There were floats of all kinds, representing different businesses, clubs (my kids’ swim club always participated), and just because people wanted to be on a float. Now, remember, I’m in Indiana, so there were all the tractors and farm machinery, too! I mean, honestly, if you’ve seen one John Deere, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Then, there would be firetrucks and such. The local high school bands would parade down the street, too. The route was fairly long, but I don’t really know in length. What I do know is that, for years, the band from my high school had to march down that route in the sunlight in July in wool uniforms…heavy, heavy woolen uniforms. There would also be the requisite convertible cars with the 4-H queen and her court riding down the street. That parade was a big deal in our community. For some goofy reason, we seemed to always sit on the east side of the street which meant we were facing the sun as it was going down.

Wrap it up, Marsha!

I know I didn’t really do this prompt justice, and I apologize to all of you, especially Debbie as it was her suggestion. We did have another festival of a sort. Since my hometown was also the county seat, we had the 4-H fair there, too, because we had the 4-H fairgrounds. We would go sometimes with the kids when they were little. They loved going into the barns for just a little bit because they were smelly (the barns, not the kids, though they might have been, too). I liked going into the buildings where they had the flower arrangements, sewing projects, and stuff like that. And, those buildings were air conditioned! So, can we talk? Does your town have a festival similar to Old Settlers? Or, did you go to different kinds of festivals? Were any of you at Woodstock? Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as soon as possible.

Thank you!

I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, subscribing or emailing! It truly means so much to me! If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me here.

What others are saying…

Debbie says, “Debbie’s favourite festival is Tumbafest, an annual festival of music, food and wine in her small hometown of Tumbarumba. It’s gearing up to celebrate 30 years in 2027 which is an amazing achievement given many festivals are folding after just a few years.’”

Suzy “writes about why she’s never been much of a festival person, despite living in a country that loves them.”

Sally “talks about the Winter Carnival that was and the one that wasn’t.”

Rosie wonders “what is it about festivals that draw people to them?”

Leslie writes, “It’s almost time for El Paso’s annual Poppy Fest.  But will the guest of honor make an appearance at this year’s celebration?”

And, now, it’s your turn!

If you’d like to link up your posts about snow, you may link up here or at any of the other blogs!

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