STREETFEST was a roaring success last Saturday. The streets of Shepherdstown were lined with tents, vendors, food trucks, beer trucks, and two stages. Live music all day long—well, until lightning crashed the party. But that wasn’t until the final band. Mother Nature stole the last act.

Cool.

I’m thinking we need a RAINFEST once every seven years so Mother Nature can have her day to show off and then otherwise leave us alone.

I remember when there was no STREETFEST. No DOGFEST, BOOFEST, or OCTOBERFEST. And no CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATER FESTival (CATF). But for the record: Before any of those FESTS there was CHRISTFEST, then PEACEFEST, LOVEFEST, and EARTHFEST, each and everyone at the Presbyterian Church.

We’re not taking credit for STREETFEST, DOGFEST, BOOFEST, OCTOBERFEST, or THEATERFEST. I’m just sayin’ that when town folk heard that Presbyterians were HAVING FUN BEING FESTIVE they said: What the hell: We can have FUN too.

Hence, STREETFEST and OTHER FESTS.

I think we may need a CATFEST, too, just to uphold DEI principles, of which Shepherdstown apparently is the last bastion in this godforsaken land.

ALL ARE WELCOME HERE. Red and yellow, black and white, gays and straights, immigrants and natives, walkers and wheelers, socialists and capitalists, anarchists and atheists, vegans and cannibals, cats and dogs, Democrats and Republicans… OOPS. Sorry, I got carried away there.

Speaking of FESTS, I remember when there was no MAY DAY parade with Morris dancers and an assortment of other merry characters prancing down German Street and twirling around a maypole on McMurran Hall’s lawn.

When MAY DAY was first announced, a cadre of born-again, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled women (a “prayer group”) presented themselves at a meeting of the Shepherdstown Ministerial Association to urge us—as the spiritual leaders of this community!—to denounce and prohibit such pagan debauchery on the streets of our town. And just for good measure, and to optimize their time on our agenda, they insisted that we denounce and prohibit Halloween as well.

We thanked them for their concern but declined the opportunity to MAKE THE SPANISH INQUISITION GREAT AGAIN. That fall, I invited the children of my church to wear their Halloween costumes to church. 

(Can’t let the devil have all the fun.)

By the way, that rumble you heard during the first-ever Shepherdstown PRIDE PARADE on Sunday, June 1, was a certain prayer group rolling over in their graves.