This past Saturday, we went to the Ferrum Folk Life Festival at Ferrum College, (
http://www.blueridgeinstitute.org/folk_festival.htm) about 20 miles from us. The day before had been miserable and raining and I had said if it were like that on Saturday I would not go, but the sun was out, it promised to be a nice fall day, with gusty winds the reports said.
In some ways I believe the main purpose of the festival is a conspiracy to make people use port-a-johns, as all the buildings are locked up. We made our way thru the craft exhibit, got out cat head biscuits with damson jelly, heard some old time music and had a box lunch curtesy of the Gethsemane Pentecostal Holliness Church, which had a slice of pumpkin pie loaded with ginger and a touch of molasses. I went back and let them know it was the best pie I ever ate in my life.
There was a larger food area opened up down the hill from us, several churches selling BBQ and Chicken, and the Working Women of the Cole Creek Church, set up selling Chitlin's.
Now if you don't know what Chitlin's are, you will need to know the actual speling of the name is Chitterlings, so you can google it, because I don't really care to discuss them. Every year this group is set up and I don't know why, there is a 20 minute wait in all other lines and no one ever gets any chitlin's. The Working Women had one of the largest tents set up too, 10X40 feet at least, shiny aluminium colored tarp stretched over an aluminum frame, we had just read the sign when all hell broke loose.
A gust of wind roared thru, overturning chairs, trash cans, and anything not nailed down. The women all dashed for stryofoam plates and paper towels, when suddenly the tent roof began to seperate from the polls that supported it. The women hollered, and they were heard, soon thirty pairs of hands were holding onto the woodbe parasail. One of the Working Women was hollering for some one to get a hammer, and my tangential mind brung up an image of M.C.Hammer and his parachute pants, but not for long.
I heard it first, in the trees nearby, the wood groaned. I had time to get out: "Hang on!" and pow, it slipped up under the gable end of the tent, and and we were all hanging on for dear life. My mind then showed me a picture of all of us being carried off, a short distance to out demise, and taking a few by standers with us. My hat blew off, over the bank of a nearby creek. I looked after it and saw people running for cover. Saw others rushing to help hold us down, it won't gone jack-board us. Black and White, Indian in all of us, male and female, gay and straight, young and old, LDS Missionaries, rednecks with Confederate Flag bandanas on their heads, all of us, determined the tent would serve out its intended function, and nothing more.
The wind ended as quickly as it began. The hammer arrived and my hat was found. I still doubt very many chitlin's were consumed. I fulfilled my quest for Peach Butter across the road, at the tent for the Climax (Virginia) Volunteer Fire Department. It, too, had been rattled by the wind. One of their customers telling them: "That Black Church almost flew to glory".
We left right after that, taking Highway 420 to Bent Mountain, where our friends were visiting from Hawai'i, enjoying their first fall in 3 years. The road was so littered with leaves and sticks it looked abandoned. I studied on a sermon I had heard earlier in the week, a preecher had described the being generally regarded as God creating Adam and Eve and breathing life into their nosrils. He explained that faith was like the wind, you could not see it but you knew it was there. Perhaps, I though, God saw a need to bring a few of Adam and Eve's children together, perhaps the Working Women have a larger purpose in the world than supplying it with chitlin's.
Topic: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings (Read 2582436 times)