Our city has a bar for every second corner and a church for every other. At one corner there is a Methodist, Evangelical, Universalist and Catholic Building facing off in silent stony boxer stance. Each guarding their corner with signs of welcome.
We live in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood which caused us some initial confusion. The children thought the neighbors worshiped their Mary statues set in little annexes in their gardens. We are still figuring out the large statue of Mary holding a dying Jesus outside our local Catholic facility (church and school). They look at it rather concernedly and then holler about the cross "where Jesus died for our sins." They still stand and gawk at various garden decorations but have desisted in yelling "Is that an Idol?" while pointing.
Our Holy Rosary down the block boasts of a large school, rectory (or something like that) and "church" with mass often. It also has one of the few Festivals where one can win a car. I confess I was not raised in a community where Catholic Festivals were visited. I was raised in a home of adventure and Pauline like aptitude to enter into any culture. So in the spirit of learning about our neighbors our family toddled off to the festival. What a hoot.
Firstly we were accosted by an elderly gentleman wearing a leather vest and a ponytail. Not my idea of Catholic but he detained us with a pleasant smile explained he was leaving and would we please use his unused tickets on the children. He then handed us about five dollars worth of tickets. At a festival of food, beer, gambling and blow up bouncy castles this was a boon. We headed immediately for the White Elephant area which happened to be a glorified garage sale where tickets were not accpted only money. We scored a three dollar crockpot for fashionable fall feeding and my domestic bliss. In chatting with a couple about the value of the crockpot (which they assured me was a steal but had I ever used a pressure cooker......had I ever?? In India it is my pot of preference!) I mentioned India and Jesus and pressure cookers. As they left they pressed another ten dollars of tickets into our hands. Our little family just about burst at the seams. Hubster was like a little kid in a candy store and I felt like I had won the lottery, already dreaming of dinner on a stick with no clean up.
We settled with five minutes for each child in the "Ozen" bouncy castle. Elsa and Anna featured boldly on the front and little Zana bounced up and down in their castle for a blissful five minutes saying "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy" over and over again with concentrated joy. Abe just zoomed in a circle around her giving a vocal masculine war cry of delight. I took a nap on the side until the monitor (a boy who looked like he was about ten but assured me of his ability to watch the clock and small children in a bouncy castle) said they had to exit. He assuredly gave them way over five minutes as there was no line and no other kids bouncing with my two.
We then ate hand made Italian sausages, fried bread dough and sweet potato fries. We did not, I will confess, gamble though there were a plethora of options for us. I particularly wanted to win the children a brand new basketball or football but Hubster outlined the actual mathematical realities. He was most tempted by the ribs up for grabs in the large tent where you sat and bought tickets of different colors for different drawings drawn from what looked like a little gerbil running wheel. However math won him over to better a doughnut in the hand then ribs in the bush.
We still had not exhausted our tickets so we returned the next night for Abe to go up and down some large blow up structure. I felt a tad bit uncertain as I watched my four year old plummet down a balloon structure called the Titanic. He was supposed to avoid the "ice burgs" at the bottom. Zana would have none of it. It was straight back to "Ozen" for her to "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy." Abe used the porta potties with Papa while she bounced under the watchful eye of a more vigilant monitor of a more certain age. He, my son, was smitten by the porta sinks which the family returned to for a prolonged visit of discovery after another sugar coated fried dough extravaganza.
Last year the Festival ended, sadly, with a prolonged Gang Fight but this year we found the whole adventure to be benign and delightful. The large Gang Unit Policemen wandering the grounds were on a whole rather unapproachable but added a sense of safety to the experience. If Abe had found himself marooned at the top of the Titanic I know they could have deflated the whole large boat with a bullet to the stern. Of course this was unnecessary as Abe (followed by a gaggle of young High school kids) fearlessly slid into the "icy" depths.
For our first plunge into Festivals it proved to be a rather lucrative family outing with strangers funding our fun. Masses of fun really.
We live in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood which caused us some initial confusion. The children thought the neighbors worshiped their Mary statues set in little annexes in their gardens. We are still figuring out the large statue of Mary holding a dying Jesus outside our local Catholic facility (church and school). They look at it rather concernedly and then holler about the cross "where Jesus died for our sins." They still stand and gawk at various garden decorations but have desisted in yelling "Is that an Idol?" while pointing.
Our Holy Rosary down the block boasts of a large school, rectory (or something like that) and "church" with mass often. It also has one of the few Festivals where one can win a car. I confess I was not raised in a community where Catholic Festivals were visited. I was raised in a home of adventure and Pauline like aptitude to enter into any culture. So in the spirit of learning about our neighbors our family toddled off to the festival. What a hoot.
Firstly we were accosted by an elderly gentleman wearing a leather vest and a ponytail. Not my idea of Catholic but he detained us with a pleasant smile explained he was leaving and would we please use his unused tickets on the children. He then handed us about five dollars worth of tickets. At a festival of food, beer, gambling and blow up bouncy castles this was a boon. We headed immediately for the White Elephant area which happened to be a glorified garage sale where tickets were not accpted only money. We scored a three dollar crockpot for fashionable fall feeding and my domestic bliss. In chatting with a couple about the value of the crockpot (which they assured me was a steal but had I ever used a pressure cooker......had I ever?? In India it is my pot of preference!) I mentioned India and Jesus and pressure cookers. As they left they pressed another ten dollars of tickets into our hands. Our little family just about burst at the seams. Hubster was like a little kid in a candy store and I felt like I had won the lottery, already dreaming of dinner on a stick with no clean up.
We settled with five minutes for each child in the "Ozen" bouncy castle. Elsa and Anna featured boldly on the front and little Zana bounced up and down in their castle for a blissful five minutes saying "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy" over and over again with concentrated joy. Abe just zoomed in a circle around her giving a vocal masculine war cry of delight. I took a nap on the side until the monitor (a boy who looked like he was about ten but assured me of his ability to watch the clock and small children in a bouncy castle) said they had to exit. He assuredly gave them way over five minutes as there was no line and no other kids bouncing with my two.
We then ate hand made Italian sausages, fried bread dough and sweet potato fries. We did not, I will confess, gamble though there were a plethora of options for us. I particularly wanted to win the children a brand new basketball or football but Hubster outlined the actual mathematical realities. He was most tempted by the ribs up for grabs in the large tent where you sat and bought tickets of different colors for different drawings drawn from what looked like a little gerbil running wheel. However math won him over to better a doughnut in the hand then ribs in the bush.
We still had not exhausted our tickets so we returned the next night for Abe to go up and down some large blow up structure. I felt a tad bit uncertain as I watched my four year old plummet down a balloon structure called the Titanic. He was supposed to avoid the "ice burgs" at the bottom. Zana would have none of it. It was straight back to "Ozen" for her to "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy." Abe used the porta potties with Papa while she bounced under the watchful eye of a more vigilant monitor of a more certain age. He, my son, was smitten by the porta sinks which the family returned to for a prolonged visit of discovery after another sugar coated fried dough extravaganza.
Last year the Festival ended, sadly, with a prolonged Gang Fight but this year we found the whole adventure to be benign and delightful. The large Gang Unit Policemen wandering the grounds were on a whole rather unapproachable but added a sense of safety to the experience. If Abe had found himself marooned at the top of the Titanic I know they could have deflated the whole large boat with a bullet to the stern. Of course this was unnecessary as Abe (followed by a gaggle of young High school kids) fearlessly slid into the "icy" depths.
For our first plunge into Festivals it proved to be a rather lucrative family outing with strangers funding our fun. Masses of fun really.
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