and i was thinking, yeah. even if the readings suck (they didn't), you can't go much wrong with readings from original documents.
so i went there.
now, i live in a small town. enfield is a big enough town to have a traffic light. it's just a blinker, but it's a light. my town does not have a traffic light. i would like you to remember this because i'm going to talk about enfield's small town america charm and i don't want you to think i'm city people looking down at them.
so i get to the festival, which is held at the school and there's nowhere to park in the lot already but i find a place on the grass and somehow i find my way to the reading, where i think i am the only person in the audience who is not related somehow to the readers.
it is awesome, and some of the letters they read from are written by people whose graves i have been to and who i know about!
so that is way cool.
and there's a little altercation between some little missy who is a high and mighty teacher at the school and she gets all attitude-y when she is talking too loud outside the reading and is asked to shush. instead of just being quiet, she goes all "I DEMAND TO KNOW YOUR NAME" and pointy fingers like you would if you were an outraged second grade teacher faced with a cheeky fifth grader you didn't know. and when the lady who asked her to shush won't give her name, she goes on with "SEE,
YOU WON'T GIVE IT TO ME BECAUE YOU KNOW YOU'RE WRONG" which is a cheesy kind of debate tactic that is rarely effective even on children.
she acts like she is the high and mighty queen of the enfield elementary school, which is a posture i have sadly seen too many times. it is my considered professional opinion that i do not like the way this woman manages her classroom. if she talks this way to adults who are using the school, i shudder to think how she treats children.
but it's a small town and everybody's gotta live close by, right, so the whole thing blows over in a few minutes or at least gets swept away.and i go off to look for lunch. i have to look hard, because the whole festival is obviously set up by local people for local people and although everybody is nice to me, the complete lack of any kind of signs or directories gives it away.
they are not expecting outsiders, and everybody from here already knows where everything is.
so i have to hunt lunch down, and i am serious bout it.
because i have been smelling the chicken barbecue since i got here. i am not a stranger to the chicken barbecue as put on by civic organizations, and this one smells like it's done right.
it has, surprisingly, a vegan option of a moroccan chickpea stew which i am told is very good. the chicken barbecue is as good as any i've had and the sides are good and plentiful, but OH, MY GOODNESS, DESSERT!
nellie, hang onto your hat. there is bread pudding with lemon sauce and if there has ever been a better bread pudding i have not met it. i would be AFRAID to meet a bread pudding any better than that because a thing that tastes better than that could destroy your nervous system and melt your whole life right town to nubs.
it was THAT good.
so then i wandered happily around the tables and tents and i asked the firemen if i could get a picture of "you handsome devils with your truck" and i talked a while with the road crew who had taken the trouble to get balloons made up.
there was a lady giving out free bike helmets to kids and a small presentation from the earnest young music teacher and some of the students and the tompkins county dairy princesses were there to dish ice cream.
what, is that some kind of beauty pageant? i asked someone.
no, they're promoting dairy farming. and they were, too. they were very sweet to pose for pictures with their tiaras and everything.
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