And now for something completely different

Disclaimer: For today and tomorrow Roundtop Ruminations will not be about life around my mountain cabin. Instead, it will be a bit about life off Roundtop and down amongst the town folks.

Last weekend was the annual Farmer’s Fair in my hometown of Dillsburg. It was the 96th such fair, and I’ve been around well over half of them. In fact, I am a Farmer’s Fair baby, which is held the third weekend of every October. The year I was born, officials were forced to stop the Saturday night parade to let my parents out of the house they were then living in with my grandparents so mom could go to the hospital to have me. I was born the next morning. I’ve been to a lot of Farmer’s Fairs. It’s a rare year when I haven’t gone.

This year I wasn’t able to stay for the Saturday evening festivities, but I wouldn’t miss the farmer’s market, the exhibits in the hall, the craft fair, the food or the antique car and tractor shows. Did I mention the food? Although I’m not a fan of fried Oreos or fried dill pickles, I can eat the heck out of peanut butter fudge, homemade beef jerky, fresh-roasted cashews and the other street fair goodies that tempt me.

This year the antique vehicles were especially numerous and beautiful. My first two photos today are of Dillsburg’s original 1919 fire truck, still with its original owners and with its original paint, which must be quite a rarity. The local volunteer fire company says the truck was still used into the 1940’s, though my dad, who was in his day a regular volunteer, swears the thing was rolled out as late as the early 1960’s for really big fires. When I was a kid the old fire truck had its own special garage where the volunteers lovingly attended it. It still does. Now, it’s only rolled out for really important things like big parades.

The next photos are two old trucks, both beautifully restored. One is a general purpose farm truck (I think), and the other is a truck for delivering produce for household delivery and street sales. It’s an old local truck, too, from nearby Gettysburg, though, not Dillsburg.

This year the weather for Farmer’s Fair was outstanding, which is something of a surprise given how wet and rainy the weather in 2011 has been. One year not long ago the festivities were actually cancelled because the rain was so severe. I can remember years when snow dusted the parade, and years when people sweltered and prayed that sundown would cool things off so they could stand to wear their parade costumes. Late October weather here is notoriously variable. This year it varied right into gorgeous sunshine.