Festival Fun

I'm a festival junkie.  I am.  I get a major high from the one thing that most adults hate.  Most adults, that I know anyway, hate everything that comes with a festival: the crowds, the heat, the noise, the expense.  I love it all.  Well, maybe not the expense.  But I'm willing to pay for my addiction.  I love the crowds, the noise, and even the heat rising off of the pavement.  It's all part of the late summer festival experience.  I love the community of it.  I love the sounds of the rides and the shrill cries of children as they fly through the air.  I love the the calls of the concession workers and the game operators.  I love the art for sale and the craft aisles.  Oh, and I love funnel cakes and fresh squeezed lemonade.  Throw in a parade and, well, I'm a very happy girl.  Really, you have to be seriously grumpy not to love a parade.  It's so much fun!

 Festivals are magical, in their own way.  They keep the child in me alive.  And because I am prone to fits of nostalgia, most often outside of my history, I only have to step foot on the midway to be pulled into the pure entertainment of early fairs.  Festivals recall a time long past when the fair coming to town was a really big deal.  It meant a break from hard work.  It was a novel form of escape.  A time when the Ferris Wheel really was magical, and a little scary, because no one had ever seen one before.  As we walk around, I see the street in sepia tones.  As I photograph our day I feel as though I can sense the emotions of a crowd long gone.  

And yes, I know that nothing about it is pure.  The rides, games, and food are over priced.  People are rude because they're tired and sweaty and overspent.  I know that the goal of the operators is to make you leave with empty pockets.  And we do.  But we also leave with cotton candy, lemonade, and maybe a prize or two, and the satisfaction of a fun afternoon spent as a family.  I guess it's all in how you see it.  You can see it all in black and white, good and evil.  Or you can see it in sepia-toned lightly processed shades of community.  People pulled together to cheer for veterans and fire trucks and marching bands.  Children delighted by simple pleasures.  And a day spent with friends and family in the late summer heat.   I prefer the latter.  I choose to live in the magic of nostalgia.   And my children have started to live there as well.  This morning, nothing was going to keep them from going downtown.  I'm OK with that.  I like our little family of festival junkies.  A day with them is a day very well spent.