Good day for a "MaiFest"

This past weekend I returned to my "hometown" for the annual "Maifest" celebration. For those of you not from Brenham, Texas--this involves kids riding on floats down main street with a king and queen bringing up the rear. In the evening there is an elaborate coronation presenting all the revelers to the crowd. Now this may sound idiotic but when something has been done for 119 years you just kind of go with it. Yes the first official Maifest was held in 1881 with horse and wagon!! It has grown over the years to include a junior maifest for the elementary kids and the senior one for the high school kids--meaning all the great fun times two. As a kid the whole thing was about as good as getting to visit the Willie Wonka chocolate factory. Around February they would announce who the kings and queens would be (usually you had to be kids and grandkids of former royalty or wealthy enough to buy into it--a small town version of debutants!!) Then you would check the mail everyday to see if you were invited to be a part of it. Once you got your invitation, costume assignments would follow--depending on the years theme. For instance this years junior theme was the "Court of Candy Land". Even though I no longer live in Brenham my son was invited to attend since my deceased sisters best friends boys were the kings and I went to high school with the twin queens parents. Whew--that was hard to get out!! Having never been to the maifest my son really could of cared less when he got his invitation but since this would probably be his only chance to be apart of this small town tradition--I put on the hard sell. I knew my ace in the hole was the special maifest edition of the local newspaper which holds pictures of all attendees (at a small fee to the parents of course) since it has long been a goal of his to be in the paper. I also stretched the truth a tad by mentioning I was sure there were star wars characters and football players in "Candy Land". But as you can see (picture on left)--there were not!! Yes--he is the tootsie roll pop owl (minus the hat which he nixed for being too dorky!!) Pretty much every one was some sort of candy. In his group were blowpops, the safety pop cop, a twirl pop and slo-poke. I remember being a nurse, carnation, jester, flapper, german maid and a princess when a friend of mine was the queen. My nephew was once a can of bug spray which was hysterical!! The day begins with the parade.


Everyone waves as the kids pass by and prays no ones falls off when the sixteen year old driver of the tractor/truck lets the clutch out and jerks the float. After all of the floats and a couple of marching bands the parade ends once the "Royal Float" comes by giving everyone a glimpse of the elaborate beading and sequencing on the trains and tiaras and septors.
As the crowd ooohed and awed I over heard some of the town ladies discussing how one of the kings get-ups had $800 worth of Swarkovski crystals attached to it. Doesn't look like the recession is hitting hard in Brenaham these days!! Although you are never quite sure if you can believe the gossip in this small town!!

But the parade is just half of the revelry--that night everyone heads down to Fireman's park to attend the coronation. The high school baseball field is turned into the "Land of Candy" so the parents can hear their child's name over the loud speaker.

A bow is taken as the camera's snap and in a flash it's over--for your child at least. The whole thing clocks in at about 2 1/2 hours!! The good news is that in this German town--the beer stand is right outside and flows plenty!! All is right by the end of the night!!