A most excellent day yesterday. Former Cokato boy and currently The Outpost's Arizona correspondent, Chris H., arrived in town with his drinking buddy and all-around trouble instigator, Jim B. We met up at the local coffee shop and spent a couple of hours trading stories, taunts, and favorite websites. I could have easily turned two hours into four, but The Senator and The Governor had already emptied their emergency reservoirs of good behavior. Gentlemen: I'm already looking forward to your next trip. That said...if I ever find a "My Other Car is A Subaru" bumper sticker on the back of my vehicle...I shall hunt you down and make your lives hell.
Yesterday was also the start of the 58th annual Cokato Corn Carnival. Side note to Chris and Jim: guess who was our entertainer in the park last night? The one, the only Water Tower Bard herself. Next year, be sure to check the city's website so you can plan your trip accordingly. You also missed the high drama surrounding the parade.
This year, the Cokato Corn Carnival Committee made the executive decision that there would be NO CANDY allowed in the parade.
A heartfelt letter to the editor, from said CCCC, explained that safety concerns were behind the measure. After receiving complaints, apparently about the velocity of sugary booty being hurled at parade-goers, the committee requested last year that all parade entrants who wanted to toss candy, do so by having volunteers walk along the curbs and gently distribute treats to all the little urchins lining the street. But, alas, some renegade scofflaw had the nerve to chuck candy from a moving float and therefore (say it with me) FOR THE CHILDREN, the safety of whom is surely squeezed in the middle of that cleanliness/godliness bond, no candy.
General discontent was widespread, and I was already looking forward to a round of terse Letters to the Editor in the next few weeks denouncing the Communist take-over of this annual event. But now I'm positively exploding with anticipation. A local landscaping company bucked authority and threw the forbidden Tootsie Rolls from their float.
The whispers and murmers rolled down Broadway Avenue. Some people cheered, some clapped, and some wondered when Wright County's finest were going to descend on the outlaws. But overall, I think most people were ready to give the landscapers a standing ovation. Personally, I'm thinking of ripping out the grass in my front yard just so I can hire them to come replace it.
I'm willing to bet that a few members of the CCCC are not enjoying this 58th running of the corn as much as they thought they would.
And speaking of corn: if you happen to be in the area tonight or tomorrow, a $3 button (good for both nights) gets you all the hot, buttered corn-on-the-cob you can eat at the main park in town. And if that wasn't enough, from 2 to 4 p.m. you can help shuck the corn! You don't even need the button to help shuck.
Folks, you just can't buy a good time like that anywhere else.
Posted by Cathy at August 14, 2007 12:43 PMI like the description of Jim B. After only 2 hours you have him figured out. Very accurate!
We will be searching high and low for something appropriate for your car, buuuhhhhwwwwaaaahhhhh!!
After reading the high drama about the parade, I was looking for a picture of a chalk outline of a child on the street with a piece of tootsie roll laying nearby.
We fought over this issue in Maple Lake a few years ago and adopted the "walker" compromise, with threat of banishing anybody who throws from floats. It mostly works.
The issue is liability, of course. The Queen and Princesses of, say, Annandale ride in a convertable and toss candy to the crowds on the sidewalk. Some always falls short. Sharp eyed kids dash out to grab it, right in front of the National Guard's tank retriever, or the grain elevator's Terragator, who can't see the kid.
One guess: when the kid gets mashed, will the parents say "Oh well, I guess them's the breaks?" Or will they sue the pants off the parade sponsors for creating a foreseeable hazard?
Solution: have people walk alongside the floats and throw candy up and over the crowd. That way, little Jimmy runs AWAY from traffic instead of into it. And designate somebody as Parade Route Enforcer with authority to pull offenders out of line, right then and there, before somebody gets hurt.
Yeah, it sucks that society is so litigious we can no longer have any fun, blah, blah, blah. So deal with it. And the time to deal with it is BEFORE the public works crew is spooning up mashed kid off Main Street.
.
$3? They'd lose money on me.
Posted by: aelfheld at August 15, 2007 02:15 PMBest. Corn. Ever.
Posted by: Chris H at August 15, 2007 03:44 PMTrouble instigator??? I prefer to think of it as "Fun Happens". We're having a custom bumper sticker made for you that will read, "My other car is a Subaru. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Posted by: Jim B. at August 15, 2007 05:58 PMSad part is, Joe, I don't think I heard anyone voicing concerns about the danger of little Janie getting run over by a John Deere. The big worry was some tyke losing an eye over a sourball being whipped by an 80-year-old driving his Model T.
And you're right - the family would be hiring a lawyer before the parade even ended. Tis an enormous shame.
Posted by: Cathy at August 15, 2007 08:34 PMJoe...love the amended bumper sticker. On someone else's car, of course. If I find that on my vehicle it will start the great Interstate Rainbow War of '07. You will have to check your car every morning for the rest of your life.
Posted by: Cathy at August 15, 2007 08:36 PMYou just THINK those were Tootsie Rolls. I heard that the landscaping firm had been doing a lot of aerating lately.
Posted by: Night Writer at August 16, 2007 12:46 PM