The annual Squash Festival

Shane spent a lot, and I mean A LOT, of time as a youth watching tv. If there is a bad 80's movie out there, he has it memorized. And loves it. In fact, he would probably prefer watching a movie if it's on tv, with commercials, to a DVD. But that is another post for another day.

Once he started dating me, he found out that one of my family's traditions is Art City Days. The second Saturday of every June will find us at sitting in front of the town's drug store watching the parade. Being Shane, he had to find a way to poke a little fun at our tradition, so he dubbed the parade day the Squash Festival, thanks to the lovely 80's movie Doc Hollywood.

Now summer doesn't begin for me until the Squash Festival. Part of me watches for people that I knew from high school (which blessedly rarely happens; I live 50 miles from my home for a reason!). I also love looking at the town, which seems both so familiar and so foreign. Did I really come from such a small place? What made so many of my school mates decide to stay living there, where everyone knows every one's entire history, and parent's history, and so on back to the pioneers? What did they find there that I wanted to get away from?

Anyway, my high school issues aside, yesterday was the day. The rain stopped just long enough for all the kiddies in the parade to stay dry. The same rival high school's bands played, the new queens and their attendants waved from atop the floats, the horses danced under their riders, the pooper scoopers scooped the poop from the road. It was the parade.

My mom and all my sisters were there, and most of their kids. My great-nephew had his first parade in which he could run and get candy with the rest of the kids. My boys got an ice cream cone. We missed my dad; it was his first year missing the parade, which was hard.

Here are a few pictures of this year's Squash Festival.

Thomas and his ice cream cone. Their acquaintance was short-lived. Poor ice cream cone.

The third floor of this building once housed my first gymnastics gym. We used to have run the stairs for conditioning. I later coached there, and took ballet on the second floor.

My kids, sisters, nieces, husband, brother-in-law, nephews, and some extras.

Parades are always a fun place to see people aging. Those kids from the class of 1964 aren't as young as they once were. But isn't the mountain pretty behind them?

My nephews sitting at the drug store counter.

It was a fun day. We finished off the day by having a barbecue at my sister's house, where our summer weather treated us to a hurricane. Or maybe just a big rainstorm. But there was water everywhere, and Shane sacrificed his body to grill us some meat.

Serves him right for making fun of the parade and calling it names.