Cheese Festival Like a Gift
It may be corny, hokey, you could even call it cheesy, but I love the Cheese Festival.
It is a vignette of smalltown life, like something out of a play or a country song.
It is a crazy busy time for us at the newspaper, rounding up stories and lists of sponsors and events for the tabular printed the week before the festival. We write and edit and fine tune like mad and still manage to miss something or forget something else.
Then comes the weekend of the festival itself. I’m everywhere at once, running from place to place, taking photos and being part of it all. The only time I stop is to stuff myself at the food booths, or to sample the cheese, maybe washed down with a little vino if it is offered.
And if it rains, everything goes on as scheduled. The parade splashes through puddles and the cheerleaders are a little damp, but their spirit remains undampened.
It is like we forget the goings-on of the world around us for a few hours. We are Watongans and proud of our little burg and what it has to offer. It’s like we are all extended family and we get along, at least for the weekend.
This year, the festival falls on my birthday. We won’t talk about which one, just suffice it to say I am older than the festival, but younger than the town.
Since my job – that in a way I inherited from old T.B. Ferguson himself – is at the oldest continuous business in town, maybe it is right and fitting that we all celebrate together.
The town and the paper are marking 130 years. So let’s get out, get a little rambunctious, and show off a little. I’d say we’ve earned it.