Corn Daze Trois - aka CD3 - June 6-8

51 weeks (25 maybe if you include winter) out of the year, this place only sees two silver Speedsters (soon to be only one), it needs a little variety. Sign up now if you haven't.

...and I shared a pizza with you. 

Wow.  That looks like "Grapevine, Texas (just west of Dallas). 

Right out of 1953.

I like it.

Makes me think of my wife's home town in Monticello WI. As a Boston kid, the first time I saw it with angle parking etc. I had to think "Wow! This is like a John Cougar (easy Vince) video. A different place. Farmers are up for the first milking early then into the bar by like 9-10 (fine by me). A light bulb hanging by a wire illuminates drinking accessories like warm limburger, pickled eggs etc. -yum.

When the have the parade they have some big girls as the Pork, Dairy, Beef Queen etc. weighing down the back of the convertibles -I was thinking "No freakin' way." All good stuff, just not what I grew up with by any stretch. Something that needs to be taken in so you can appreciate all the different aspects of our country.

...and the expression, "GOLLLEEEE" is over-used all weekend. We do bring the excitement to town.

It's true: we live in Mayberry RFD, on purpose for the most part. I love this little hick-town.

I've got kids up in Chicago. It's a fun place to visit, and the future is in big cities (I keep hearing)-- but I feel like I've given my family a pretty darned good life here. I live in a big house I built with my own hands, plying a trade with skills I learned from my dad. My wife cooks a big family dinner every Sunday.

Things are changing. Most of the small farms are leased out now, and Bonnie's Cafe finally closed after 50 years in continuous operation. We've got a snooty coffee shop in the old train depot, and the state has done it's level best to bankrupt us all.

The summers still swelter, and the winters... well, the winters will be the undoing of me, eventually.

But I've known everybody in town for my whole life. My lawyer closes his office for deer season, and I can borrow money from the bank on pretty much a handshake. My accountant is a straight-laced tax-law idiot-savant whose kids became CPAs and work in his office. All of our kids had a lot of the same teachers through high-school we did, and a classmate of mine is the superintendent of schools. We've got 5 churches for the 2000 souls that call Tremont, IL home, and those churches are full every Sunday. When the corn is shooting tassels, and the cicadas are in full song, and the night sky is a canopy of stars-- it's pretty magical.

Every year at the beginning of June, everybody (and I really mean EVERYBODY) pulls together for the annual Turkey Festival (nope, not kidding). We're building CD3 around being in town for that weekend.

Want to find the America you thought was lost 50 years ago?

Have we got a show for you.

Make him buy you a turkey sandwich this year for forgetting you, Joe.

I can't remember, did we have anchovies?

Stan,

That sounds like pure nostalgic Norman Rockwell 'Americana'

I'm glad it still exists someplace...somewhere.

Sounds a lot like Grady, South Carolina.

as per 'Doc Hollywood'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WmgEd4uavI

My better half and I are still going, we are still booked at the Cornerstone Inn. I've done a few shakedown passes on the Spyder and she seems to be willing to make the trip up north 

Really nice post, Stan.  Made me want to visit there, someday.

There are a lot of those little towns out there.  Beaufort, SC, was one and where I live now, Grafton, MA, (also where I grew up, like Stan) is one, too.  They're all different on the surface, and all pretty much the same when you get to know them because the people make the town.

Grafton looks like something out of the mid-1800's, treed, grass common in the center of town with churches, town buildings and Victorian homes all around but each week in the summer sees a different little event on the common's lawn - Book sales, Rhubarb Festival, Band concerts in the bandstand on the common, Apple Pie Socials in the fall, lots of stuff going on.

We've had our share of change over the decades (we were incorporated in 1735) going from an agricultural base in the 1700's to an industrial/Mill base in the 1800/1900's to a bedroom community now, but it's always been a really nice place to bring up your kids.