Central Ohio has a bunch of festivals in small towns every year. There’s the Reynoldsburg Tomato Festival, the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival, the Circleville Pumpkin Show, the Marion Popcorn Festival, can’t remember the towns for the bratwurst and zucchini festivals. None of them are all that unusual, really. We once drove through Cadiz, Ohio, a town that takes unusual pride in being the birthplace of Clark Gable.
Strictly speaking, I was born in a little country township, and brought up (until I was 19) in a teeny tiny fishing village. That village was home to the very first official Church Service in the country. And that’s about all.
The nearest metropolitan town is home to the Southernmost University in the World, and the oldest in the country.
Every single one of these things are not worth celebrating. New Zealand has only one celebration of itself, it is called Waitangi Day, and is usually marred by protest, violence, stupidity, interrupted by boring speeches that are the same old crap from the previous year.
-PIGEONMAN-
Returns!
The Legend Of PigeonMan - By Popular Demand! Enjoy, enjoy!
Beattyville, KY, where I spent my first 18 years or so, is home of the Woolly Worm Festival.
For the unenlightened, a Woolly Worm (or Isabella moth caterpillar) is the fuzzy little worm that’s usually orange and black. Folk meteorology claims that the pattern of stripes on the worm indicates what the coming winter will be like–for instance, a worm that is orange/brown on both ends and black in the middle implies a mild winter on both ends, with bad weather in the middle.
At some point, the local newspaper decided to begin taking a yearly survey of worm patterns, and it became a big deal among the folk weather community. About ten years ago, somebody thought this fact should be celebrated the last weekend in October. The rest is history.
It could be cool in a cheesy sort of way, if the festival itself had anything to distinguish it. It has exactly the same funnel cake booths, stands selling bootlegged Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts, and middle schoolers singing bad country songs as every other fall festival in eastern Kentucky. At least the World Chicken Festival in London has the worlds largest chicken frying skillet, and you can see sorghum made the old fashioned way (with a mule) at the Sorghum Festival in West Liberty.
The other major problem is that they picked the last weekend in October because there were no other festivals in the area that weekend, failing to realize that there’s a very good reason for that–it’s usually DAMN COLD by then!
Dr. J
I was born in San Francisco, California. I don’t think they bother to claim to be the world capital of anything. It probably is the world capital of some things, though. [Insert hippie/liberal/weirdo/Willie Brown joke here.]
However, I mostly grew up in the town of Petaluma, California, which is, of course, the Egg Capital of the World. The egg incubator was invented in Petaluma, and apparently this allowed local businesspeople to kick ass in the world’s egg market eighty years ago or whatever. The last hatchery closed in the early '80s, but the city still claims that vaunted title. A HUGE number of buildings that have been converted to business and residences and whatever are former hatcheries and often still bear signs proclaiming themselves as such. As a result, every spring, there is Butter & Eggs Days, which is predominated by a parade which the entire town either watches or participtes in. (I was in the parade at least eight times, and watched it a couple more.)
Now I go to school in Santa Cruz, California, which doesn’t officially lay claim to the title Most Liberal (And Silly) Town In The Known Universe, but it probably is. SC is officially a Nuclear-Free Zone (that’s what the sign says at the city border!), so leave your weapons of mass destruction in San Jose!
~Kyla
“Anger is what makes America great.”
Kyla: Are you familiar with this Peanuts strip? Snoopy is going to the arm-wrestling championships in Petaluma. He walks all the way there, with his supper dish on his head, and in the middle of the night, arrives at the sign that says “Welcome to Petaluma”. “Rats! No band.” he observes. Mr. Rilch and I often say, “Rats! No band.” when something underwhelms us (like Y2K), and intend someday to stop in Petaluma so we can say it there.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Kyla: Next time i go to Santa Cruz, I will have to look for those signs! I think for the west coast though, it can claim the west coasts oldest seaside amusement park (I think). If it isn’t the haven for old and tired hippies, I don’t know what is.
It’s worth the risk of burning, to have a second chance…
Mine, Pacific Grove, claim to fame: sewerville.
About 100,000 gal of raw sewage leaks in four months.
Rackensack: Thanks for the Toad Suck link! My husband’s family is from Dardanelle, Arkansas, and we’ve driven past Toad Suck. He never learned where that name came from, and I always thought it was one of the funniest names in the history of towns.
Much obliged!
“The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage.” --anonymous redhead