2 Fall Fests
OLP Festival 2
I've only written about the OLP Parish Festival one other time. It is a chapter in my second book, Once in a Lifetime: A Song For Sam. It used to happen in the summer. However, at some point after I left OLP as a student, one of Luke's classmates' moms took over running the festival. Once that classmate's little brother graduated, the mom stopped running the festival, and eventually it was rebranded as a fall festival. On Saturday, September 19th, Paige and I drove to my parents' house after hanging out with Noah and Nicole individually that day, and we walked to OLP.
There were a few differences between this new OLP festival and the one from my youth. For one thing, there were less people, or at the very least less people that I knew. This makes sense… I am no longer a parishioner, student, or staff member at OLP, so it makes sense that I’m a little out of the loop. And obviously, as an adult, I could not enjoy “kiddie land,” which was a huge draw during my childhood, obviously. But I was able to see a few former teachers and some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.
The chapter I wrote about the OLP festival in Once in a Lifetime was one of my favorite childhood memories. It was the first time that I had any freedom at all, the closest thing S.M. and I ever had to a date, and (with the benefit of hindsight and knowing her in the present), Elana did attempt to tell me that S.M. liked me too that night. While it was not as eventful as I thought it would be, it was still fun to introduce Paige to everyone.
Cooketober Fest
The neighbors directly behind my parents (The Crawfords) live on a street called Cooke Rd. Every year Cooke Rd. has their block party at the end of September, and they call it Cooketober Fest.
The following Saturday, September 26th, when Paige and I got up, we had a text from Nicole. She asked if we wanted to go to Roosters to watch the game with a coworker of hers. We got to Roosters at 11:50 right before kickoff, and Nicole and her coworker Sam arrived shortly thereafter. We sat and watched the whole game, and then I left Paige with Nicole because I had to do some work stuff. About an hour later (5:00), I arrived at my parents' house, about 10 minutes after Paige and Nicole.
When I arrived at Cooketober Fest, I immediately talked to Mom and Robin Crawford, Dad, and Stephen Crawford, then Ryan, and Luke (who were bartending). Paige, Nicole and I found a seat, and we talked until we saw Megan and Rachel Crawford, Megan’s boyfriend, who we’re gonna call Jonah, and Josh. We moved to their table and began catching up with everyone!
Hot take: I hate summer. To be fair, I also hate winter. I think I just hate the extremes. In my perfect world, the seasons would be Fall (August 1st-Thanksgiving Day), Winter (Black Friday-New Year's Day), Spring (January 2nd- July 1st), and then Summer (July 2nd-July 31st). I have never really expressed my love for fall in an installment before, and with these two fall festivals, I thought it would be a nice way to start off one of my favorite seasons.
Have a Greattastic day and be Safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri, SBT
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