Sunday

By Any Other Name...

We learned something this weekend. It may prove to be invaluable in the future, when we’re trying to decide what we want to do on any given weekend, as we peruse the newspaper for local goings-on. “Festival” in the Midwest generally means one thing, no matter what else is tacked on to the title.

Saturday we went to the Starving Artists Festival. I assumed, naturally I think, that there would be artists there. You know, as in “I paint pictures” kind of artist. There were some awesome displays of woodwork, homemade jewelry, tie dyed t-shirts, quilts, embroidered shirts and skirts… but no paintings.

Hmmm.

Today we went to the Beavercreek Popcorn Festival. I like popcorn. It seemed promising; 200 booths, and all were supposed to have popcorn in some form (according to the Dayton Daily News, anyway.) There was also a nice little car show, with enough classic cars and ragtops to give us both minor cases of drooling.

I only saw 5 or 6 booths that had popcorn. The rest was, well, woodwork, homemade jewelry, tie dyed t-shirts, quilts, embroidered shirts and skirts. The skill of these people is incredible – at both festivals – so good I wondered a few times why they were hawking their wares there instead of setting up shop in the mall. But I also wondered where the heck all the popcorn was.

I can only conclude that in the Midwest, “festival” when coupled with any other word really means “craft show.”

I wonder what we’ll see if we go to something advertised as a craft show…

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