A.D. (After Dogwood)
April 29th, 2008, 9:55 am · Post a Comment · posted by jjurney
You know you’re at a small-town festival when the first sign you see reads “Funnel Cake.”
Quite a crowd of families and teenagers came out Friday night for the 20th Annual Mebane Dogwood Festival.
The scene reminded me of my teen years attending Festival In The Park in Danville. It was a sprawling event that takes place in Ballou Park every May. It was the closest thing to a fitness program that the city ever came up with for the simple fact that you had to constantly hike to get to different areas. Thirsty? Let’s turn around and head up to the food area. Want to see some arts and crafts? Let me do some stretching first. Want to go try to win a Journey mirror from the crooked carnie? Get on your walking shoes.
However, the festival’s sprawl ended in the late ’80s thanks to one man, Geraldo Rivera and one incident on his TV show.
After that show, a rumor ran like wildfire through the Danville community that, get this, satanic skinheads riding in limosines were looking to abduct blonde hair, blue-eyed girls from the festival. Needless to say, many parents wouldn’t allow their Sun-In dyed hair and blue contacts-wearing daughters to go to the festival.
From then on, the festival’s size was scaled back and most of the booths were set up along the park’s main road.
By the way, another “ripped from the headlines” rumor started in 1992 after the L.A. riots. Something about black gangs shooting, you guessed it, blonde hair and blue-eyed girls.
The Dogwood Festival on Friday night was sparsely populated with booths. Plenty of people showed up to see Mason Lovette. I have to confess that I never did hear the band play. Part of the reason was that I was busy walking around and the other part is that everytime I went near the stage, it sounded like a song was ending or they were tuning up.
I did see the guitarist from the best punk/hard rock band ever from Danville (C.O.D.) taking money from children at a carnival game booth. He should remember the Festival In The Park in 1992 where his band stirred up a mosh pit that caused the Danville police to swarm in and nearly started a teenage riot.
We returned to the Dogwood Festival around noon Saturday to see a totally transformed event. Booths lined both sides of Clay Street.
My wife saw a pocket book booth that pulled her in like a Death Star tractor beam. We bought some homemade Indian bracelets. We watched some cloggers and some kids try to break dance on the asphalt. Ouch! Puppets waved and yelled ”bye” to our lost souls from a ministry kiosk.
I have two problems with the festival however. The first is that it is was nearly impossible to walk down Clay Street because of the volume of people. Organizers may want to consider spreading things out because you cannot stop to look at items nor can you speak with someone lest you create a traffic jam of people. The other problem is that there needs to be a green space for the bands to play on. No one wants to sit on asphalt to watch a beach band in the middle of an 85-degree day.
To beat the heat, we took refuge in Clay Street Tavern and Dick & Jane’s. Red Oak and peach martinis taste good on a hot day.
We missed the “Mayberry Memories” stage show but “Barney” and “Gomer” were roaming around the festival. My wife was able to get Barney to say “Nip it in the bud.”
The Ribfest was confusing and a tad disappointing. I was under the impression that the rib cookers would offer their fare for sale. Instead, the public was invited to sample the food so it wasn’t a total loss. I just wish I could have had more because that meat was plumb falling off the bone. I had to settle for full rib and barbecue fixes from Smokin’ Joe’s and A&M Grill’s booths.
There was one booth that made the biggest impression upon us. It was a man singing karaoke-style gospel music behind a table with stacks of homemade CDs that resembles the Sierra Nevadas. He was singing when we first walked by his booth and, four hours later, was still singing. Windell Capel was in the middle of an anti-alcohol tune when we approached his booth. He had props including an empty six-pack of Michelob bottles set up among the tons of compact discs. We asked him which CD was the best and he sang to us which one was the greatest, the CD entitled “They Don’t Live Here Anymore.” He sang to us the “Buy 2, get 2 free” special and even sang while he signed the photo shown above.
We went home and put on the CD. The title track tells of our hero going to the “drug house,” the “liquor house,” and the “welfare office.”
Bring on the Alamance County Fair.
