Summer events



Phil Cunningham for the Forecaster

So why are all these seemingly impassive adults just sitting there as the little kid fends off a giant clam all by himself.  It isn’t what it looks like . . . it’s the Yarmouth Clam Festival, just north of us here in Falmouth and boy, is it big!  And that’s not any clam, that’s “Steamer” the clam, the event’s mascot.  As is typical throughout the country, summer is the time for festivals, fairs, field days, and so on, and Maine is not to be undone.  The town is expecting one hundred thousand people to attend.  I know, I know, it’s not the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall, but consider Yarmouth is a pretty small place; it’s a village for goodness sake.  Per capita, that’s a lot of people.  There will be a parade, lots of food (clams, of course), music (country, jazz, barbershop quartets, you name it), and a carnival with rides.  Lots of others things happen too that never happened when I was a kid like a bike, canoe, and kayak races (all separate events, though!), art shows, public library events, and the like.   Back then we would not have ever have imagined things like this.  About the most athletic thing at our Fireman’s Field Day in rural Scriba in central NY was the firemen’s push ball game.  A ball in a net was suspended on a rope stretch in the air between to volunteer fire department crews.  The object of the game was to push the ball over the heads of the opposing team using fire hoses.  The parade was on Friday, the push ball game on Saturday, and fireworks on Sunday, and boy! I think I liked the pull ball game the best.  Of course, the crowd loved it when in the heat of the battle they got sprayed accidently by the firemen.  It’s hard to describe the scene, but thanks to Google I found a picture posted by “eaglebear” of a game played recently in Pennsylvania. 

It looks similar to what I remembered, except we had a lot more people milling around our event and a lot more opportunity to get sprayed.  Well, that was our big event for the summer.  Of course, now with the great revival of the American small town and village there are concerts in the park, riverfests, and all sorts of things going on.

By the way, the true identity of Steamer, I understand from the local newspaper, is a closely guarded secret.  I am not sure if the secrecy is protecting anyone, the festival, or the just Streamer, him or her itself.  Also heard . . . next year there may be an additional, smaller mascot, “Littleneck.”  Who knows maybe next year maybe John or I could . . .