Flag Day 37

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Wow, Flag Day in Greeleyville has been going on for 37 years. A festival is a fun, frustrating and magical thing. It can be fun because of all the fun things to do. Parades, games, good food and visiting with friends are the main reasons we love a festival. A festival is frustrating because not enough people are willing to help with the work and you can think of all sorts of things that could be included in next year’s festival. A festival is magic because of the simplest things bring us the most joy. Think of the joy we get from watching a parade. It still seems like the best part of any festival is a parade. Flag Day always has a parade that has everything. There are golf carts, race cars, some floats, and even horses. The rest of the day brings out the simplest of games that bring joy. A simple egg toss or a hula-hoop contest seems magical. The luck of being able to catch an egg and receive a t-shirt seems to defy common sense. It is still fun though. Visiting with old friends is the best benefit of a festival. It is fun to see people that moved out of town years ago. Now they are back to reminisce about the way things used to be. That is probably the best part of the experience. Once you condense the last ten years of your life down to three minutes, you can finally get to the best part of any festival. The food! We are even simple with our tastes at a festival. There is no haute cuisine. A hot dog tastes as good as any big dish. The reason? It is a festival food staple. Festivals bring out lots of politicians. There are plenty of registered voters attending a festival. People running for office will quickly tell you about how they believe in all the amendments to the constitution and that they try to obey at least seven of the 10 Commandments. Flag day ends with a street dance and a fireworks show. All this makes for the best of weekends and a long running festival. The special times don’t end with that. Sunday morning brings out several churches and choirs to have a community worship service. All this makes for a wonderful experience. That’s what keeps people coming back and working on the festival committee. Next year there will be more of the same. Some of the vendors will change. Different people will come with different food. New games will be played. There will even be different politicians throwing candy during the parade. What won’t change are all the fun, food and fellowship that make these festivals special. Bobby Jonte is the president of the Bank of Greeleyville. His column appears periodically on manninglive.com and in The Manning Times.