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Hidey Hole Hollow had their big (and only), town event over Memorial Day Weekend. Considering it's such a small town (population approximately 1900 including the surrounding hamlets), we really celebrate first class and it's exactly the same way every year.
The festival begins on Friday evening with a sportsman's dinner and raffle. Saturday is the big festival day. There are yard sales all over town and throughout the surrounding towns and hamlets.
Saturday morning starts out bright and early with a furniture race. It's actually pretty funny. People race everything from old kitchen tables to beds (sans mattress), to living room easy chairs. There aren't too many rules; you must be sixteen or older to race, the furniture item must be stable (not the racer, the furniture), the racer gets one run, must wear a helmet and have a working brake on their vehicle'. Points are awarded for appearance, speed and accuracy (meaning they must steer it away from crashing into buildings and onlookers at the bottom of the hill). There is a finish line at the bottom of the hill and they're awarded points for how close they come to the finish line without going over it. Monetary prizes are awarded once the points are totaled up. It's really funny to see the determined looks on their faces and to see the pilot' and co-pilot' using oars and brooms to push another furniture pilot' off course and to see that other furniture pilot' try to stay on course while trying to knock the offending pilot' or offending co-pilot' off course.
At two o'clock, the Big Whopper Liar's Contest starts in the village park. Liar's' are allowed four minutes to tell their story. (It's obvious some liars' have had much more experience than others.) They are judged on technique, story development, originality and effectiveness and oh yehno fishermen allowed for obvious reasons.
At four o'clock, it's cow plop bingo. What? You've never heard of this game? Where have you been? This game is really first class. Bingo squares are positioned on the ground in a marked area containing a free roaming cow. Each square costs twenty-five dollars. If the cow plops on your square, you win the grand prize and each of the surrounding squares wins a smaller amount. Sometimes the game takes a little longer than other times. I guess it depends on how many prunes the cow had the night before. If you haven't played cow plop bingo, you haven't lived.
Saturday evening from seven to ten is Cruise Night. Oh yeh. That's what I'm talkin' about. Everyone for miles around (probably all of five to ten miles), drives their antique or classic vehicle and parks them on the main street. Main Street is roped off from the blinking light at the intersection to Ned's Restaurant and you can walk right in the middle of Main Street. Not that you couldn't do that at other times, just not for three hours at a time. The Computer Genius and I drove down just to see what was going on. Not much. There were about thirty antique and classic vehicles and there was 1960s music pounding out the beat from a boom box. There were two stands selling outrageously priced snacks. There were actually more cars than gazers'.
Sunday begins with church service in the park. Some residents resume their yard sales and there's the ubiquitous firemen's chicken BBQ from noon until it's sold out. In the evening, the ropes come out on Main Street again for a four hour street dance with a real live DJ. See what I told you about first class? Oh. Don't deny it. I know you doubted me, but now you're convinced.
By Memorial Day most everyone has had enough of community togetherness and want to spend the day with their own families, or in their own house with the doors and windows locked and the phone turned off, but out of patriotism, Hidey Hole Hollow has a rip-roaring Memorial Day Parade complete with a veterans memorial service at the town cemetery with a twenty-one gun salute and everything. I haven't heard of anyone being shot yet so we're good there.
That's it for the year, but in a town as boring as Hidey Hole Hollow, it takes a whole year to catch your breath from all that pandemonium. Ok I'm on my way to sit down and put my feet up until next Memorial Day Weekend. After all that excitement, my dain is bramaged.
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I maaay have exaggerated the fun just a little, but when you live in a dead end town with a name like Hidey Hole Hollow, you sometimes have to exaggerate to keep your sanity.
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