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| Vermontville, Michigan |
This past Saturday you could have found Josh and me in Vermontville, Michigan. And what were doing in Vermontville, you ask? Well, as the town's name might suggest, we were participating in the very well attended Maple Syrup Festival.
I'm kind of a sucker for agricultural festivals, something that I'm increasingly recognizing as one of my many midwestern characteristics. There's something so great about the idea of a community coming together to celebrate the end of another's year's harvest of their local product (in Vermontville's case, maple syrup). Of course, many of the original qualities of agricultural festivals have evolved to reflect modern day socio-economic practices as well as modern values. Relatively few people are professional farmers today, meaning the "end of the harvest" significance of the celebration is less salient than it certainly once was. Similarly, what I imagine was once a giant potluck (and, granted, I may just have an active imagination) is now a commercial enterprise for some who sell any number of products made with the ingredient of focus.
But, those differences aside, the reason I love these festivals is their sense of jubilant and proud community gathering. In this small town of 750 or so residents, cars were parked on both sides of Main Street (a two lane road through the downtown area) for at least a half mile out of town. The parade boasted more than 60 local businesses and organizations and was led by the volunteer fire department (members of which knew by name most of the crowd). On display were goods for sale by local craftspeople as well as the local career technical school, demonstrating wood processing skills they teach their students. There was even old-fashioned ice cream made by hand with nothing but some cream, maple syrup, an ice bucket, and a John Deere diesel engine.
I guess all of this seems so wonderful because in our too often violent and fractured modern world, this is a perfect, albeit momentary, manifestation of what community can be: a common interest bringing together a group of people.
At any rate, Josh and I have five more festivals on our calendar for this summer and the Maple Syrup Festival was a lovely opening to the season.
I'm kind of a sucker for agricultural festivals, something that I'm increasingly recognizing as one of my many midwestern characteristics. There's something so great about the idea of a community coming together to celebrate the end of another's year's harvest of their local product (in Vermontville's case, maple syrup). Of course, many of the original qualities of agricultural festivals have evolved to reflect modern day socio-economic practices as well as modern values. Relatively few people are professional farmers today, meaning the "end of the harvest" significance of the celebration is less salient than it certainly once was. Similarly, what I imagine was once a giant potluck (and, granted, I may just have an active imagination) is now a commercial enterprise for some who sell any number of products made with the ingredient of focus.
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