Quite the SummerFest it was.
A good deal of the time, it was “hotter than the hinges of hell”, but almost all of the time it was “tons o’ fun” for the crowds of folks in the streets, at the entertainment venues, watching the dunking tank or the bull-riding location…or EATING !
Yup. The food was abundant and varied…as usual. I got my regular once-a-year fix of a corn dog and then branched out from there.. The lemonade was truly refreshing after the consumption of each chili dog that I got too. Don’t know how the rest of the items on offer–pizza, gyros, kettle corn, Dippin’ Dots, elephant ears, ribs, icecream, etc.–went down but it looked like everybody was eating something all of the time. Yum.
I did feel kinda bad for the poor dogs touring around the mid way with their owners–they were hot and probably thirsty, surrounded by people they did not know, and who did not know them, and plenty of noise. The fireworks were great but animals do not enjoy all of that flash-bang sort of stuff and probably would have been much happier at home. And speaking of flash-bang….
Who was setting off the stuff on the west side of town? It was not annoying so much as superfluous. Most of it could not be seen on the other side of town and was just a bunch of noise for no good reason. The scheduled fireworks were way better as far as design and imagination–professional display to be seen by everyone. Lotta new formation, color, timing and even sounds; thank the sponsors for all that (With the tariffs on Chinese-made fireworks, who knows when we’ll get that kind of display again–EXPENSIVE !).
The Grand Parade was a winner too. The mayor and his lovely wife waved. More floats than usual;ball teams of every dimension and decorating level waved and yelled and threw candy or squirted water; the stilt-walkers (no relation) and the clown were good. How do they get down from those things anyway? The same question might be asked about the Unicycle Patrol from St.Helen’s School in Newbury. They were impressive, and fun to watch. We had our quota of politicians–Melissa Roubic, running for a county judge spot renewal brought about half of the electorate with her. The county auditor and two commissioners showed their faces to the crowd and waved from their cars while trying to look electable. Plenty of BIG trucks. Lots of sirens and flashing lights. A red Bronco came commemorating the invention of the LifeSaver by Garrettsville’s Crane Candy Company. Businesses showcased their goods and services from far and wide–some of them pretty wide indeed, specializing in automotive rescues that can’t be handled by your regular pickup with a winch. It was a Grand Parade for sure.
Saturday’s tractor parade drew a pretty big crowd too, considering that just that morning there had been a downpour that could have cut the attendance. But we are tougher folks than that (Last year we finished in the rain) so everyone cheered and collected candy flying through the air as the humongous, multi-wheeled giant machines went by and as well to see the antiques and little guys putt-putt past. Great fun, all of it.
Make plans to come back next year and be sure to thank all of the businesses–(Sarchione comes to mind here, so does DayStar) and individuals (We’re talkin’ Aaron King, here.) that contributed to make this an occasion.
I spent time prepping in the VIP Sarchione/Perme tent along the Grand Parade route. Well, who’s more VIP? Had to share the space with councilwoman Sheri Johnson, of course. “Very Important” doesn’t begin to describe us!
