It finally came. It took six days, but October finally felt like itself again. It has been a rather mopey October this year and I was starting to get a bit irritated. Where was my October spark? My twinkle? Today I found it and all I had to do was look on main street. Each year my tiny town has what they call the October Faire. I think they add the “e” on the end to seem old timey and quaint, but it really isn’t necessary, it annoys me and it makes me think of fairies, so for the rest of the posting I will just call it a fair without the fancy e. The fair happens on the first Saturday of the month. The main street is closed down, vendors open their doors and craftsman of all kinds set up booths in the middle of the road. There is always a food wagon or two, the firemen always set up their truck and somewhere there is face painting. This year was no different.
In years past I have not had much luck with the October Fair. I either had so much work that I couldn’t go, or when I did go the weather was terrible. I remember one year when the temperature dropped and the rain came at us sideways. It was kind of entertaining to watch people run for cover underneath the tiny portable tents. We all stayed huddled up in miserable clumps staring at one another until the rain let up for a few minutes enough for everyone to scurry to the safety of their cars and home to dry out.
This year however, everything was perfect. The sun was out, but it wasn’t too hot. There wasn’t any wind or rain and I didn’t have any work to keep me from enjoying the festivities. The same food trucks were in attendance and though I never did find the face painting booth, I did see evidence of it on many small children’s faces. The vendor theme seemed to be babies and politicians. If someone wasn’t selling baby quilts, blankets, burp cloths, jammies or pacifier chains, then they were stumping for election or reelection for one office or another. It made for an odd pairing mostly because no babies were in attendance at all so the politicians had no tiny, chubby faces to kiss, and for the vendors there were no parents to see the baby products too.
At one point both mom and I needed a breather and a handy bench appeared for us outside of a flower shop that I swear never has any customers and is always closed, today being no exception. This bench turned out to be the best seat in the whole fair. From our vantage point we got to watch the mayor drop ping pong balls for kids from atop the raised fire truck ladder. I’m certain the balls had some sort of prize associated with them from the way the kids pounced upon them, but I could be wrong. At least it looked fun and there was much cheering. A few friends sauntered up to us and stopped to say hi and give out hugs. But my favorite part of our bench was that we were right across from a rather entertaining gentleman who was dressed partly like a prospector and partly like a cowboy. He had a microphone and some very interesting stories to tell. Most of what he said we really couldn’t understand, though he was quite animated about it. But every now and again words like whiskey, moonshine, afoul of the law, and assorted other gems floated to the forefront of the story. I assume it was a story anyway, and it sure did seem to tickle his fancy. Ours too. Every now and then he would burst out laughing this raspy cough/gargle sort of laugh. I’m pretty sure what he was saying wasn’t meant for kids to hear, but sadly, or maybe fortunately, only mom and I seemed to be listening to him. He didn’t seem to care about his lack of audience and kept right on talking. I’m fairly certain he was supposed to using the mic, in fact I think he was the MC, either way mom and I loved him.
Once we felt good enough to continue on, we went back to the important task of booth perusal. Mom eyed a snazzy black Dodge Viper while I looked at spangly Halloween bracelets. Hey, we each have our priorities. The best purchases of the day came from a local farmer and his wife and an artist from Baker. Though mom would disagree and say that the lady who sold her a teddy bear dressed up like a jack o’ lantern was by far the best vendor in the place. The artist from Baker painted scenes on wine glasses and a few bottles. On most of the glasses she had only done a few traceries or small pictures, but on one bottle she had the full depiction of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Other than a few paintings by Kandinsky or Vettriano, the Scream is one of my favorites. It now proudly sits on top of my bookshelf and despite the fact that it is October colored (another bonus) it will stay up there year round. I may or may not have let out a giddy squeal when I saw it.
As wonderful as the bottle was, the purchases from the farm couple are what really made my day. While mom and I listened to the western gentleman in charge of the microphone prattle on, we had ample time to evaluate the wares of the booth across from us. This couple was selling the most magnificent pumpkins I have ever seen and I am horribly picky when it comes to my pumpkin purchases so that’s saying something. There were shorts ones, tall ones, round ones, green ones, white, grey and spotty. I was pretty sure I had died and gone to pumpkin heaven. They were all so perfect and arranged so nicely that for a good long while I thought they were just decoration for the booth. Mom finally had enough of me hemming and hawing about wether or not they were for sale and finally shoved me in their direction. I shyly enquired of the proprietress and found out they were for sale. I then proceeded to blow her mind and pick out 4 of what I thought were the best of the best. Her eyes slightly bugged out of her head and I instantly became her new best friend. Either they were having a really slow day or no one had ever bought four pumpkins at one time before. She immediately grabber her husband so that the two of them could get me situated with my purchases before I disappeared.
I was very enthusiastic to buy the perfect pumpkins but there was just one problem. We did not have a teleportation device handy to zap my bulky new friends into my car. No problem said the man, he would personally carry them for me. I felt awful (cuz he was about 80 and didn’t really look like he needed to be hefting large pumpkins all the way to my car) and a bit irritated because I am no shrinking miss and am quite capable of carrying my own goods thank you very much. But he wasn’t doing it to be patronizing he just wanted to be helpful. So I reluctantly let him carry one, and he reluctantly let me carry another all the way to my car. We had a lovely chat. He told me that he personally cared for and grew every pumpkin in the booth. He said he was very sorry to see the one pumpkin he was carrying go, as it was his favorite. He wasn’t putting me on either. He really meant it and was kinda getting teary. I felt bad and offered to pick a different pumpkin just so he wouldn’t have to part with it. He assured me that he thought it was going to a good home and that he was ok with me having it. Once we got to the car he insisted that it ride in the passenger seat and then told me that I needed to drive slowly and avoid sharp turns so that I didn’t jostle it. I promised that I would. It was the sweetest thing.
Carrying the pumpkin for me turned out to be a bit much so when we got back to the booth he let me take the remaining two to my car without him. When I returned to thank them and get my change, they handed me a bag of mini pumpkins free of charge and told me to have a happy Halloween. I almost cried it was so sweet. After the fair was over, mom and I got to watch them load up their truck full of pumpkins and drive away. We were both sad that we didn’t buy more. And then we kicked ourselves for not getting the name of his farm. Even now, writing this thought, I am not sure the pumpkin man and his wife were even real. How come no one else saw how perfect those pumpkins were and didn’t snap them up? People should have been swarming the booth. For the rest of the month, I will look at my four beauties and their tiny counterparts and think of the pumpkin man and his wife.
After all of our goodies had been loaded into the car, mom and I ambled back down to the local coffee joint and stuffed ourselves full of cider, spiced pumpkin lattes and pumpkin muffins. We got the added bonus of sitting near a very talented oldies cover band and whiled away the rest of the afternoon listening to them. It was a great October outing. People were friendly, the weather was great. We found special trinkets that neither of us expected to find. We didn’t want the fun to end.
It was a truly great October day that actually felt like an October day. That is just one of the things that I love about this month. Days like today. You start the day thinking one thing is going to happen. And it does, but better than you ever could have imagined. I truly felt the magic today. I hope you do/did too.
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