I enjoy festivals and fairs. The smaller the event, the more I enjoy it.

This is not to take anything away from larger events. The Jefferson County Fair and Community Days in DuBois draw me each year. Both events offer a slice of heaven, hot sausage sammiches slathered in peppers and onions. They alone make the events worthwhile.

In my younger years, events drew me to fairs and festivals. Rides, animals and fireworks were all enjoyable and fun for our children as well.

My children are grown, scattered across the country. Most grandchildren are past the age where they would squeal with delight at fair/festival fun.

Without kids, fireworks become neck-stiffening repetitions. My geezer-days desire for early bedtimes further lessens their appeal.

But when a fair or festival is smallish, and within an hour’s drive to boot, I delight in attending, because of the people.

I “know” fewer and fewer people I see at such events as the years pass. Some I once knew are now dead. Others are retired to Florida or other distant, venues.

So I see fewer people I once counted as friends or fellow community members.

It is embarrassing to admit, as I must, that my claim to “see” fewer people is really a failure to recognize people.

My eyesight is hemmed in by cataracts. With eyeglasses assistance, it is still acute enough to permit me to drive.

What has gone kaflooey is my ability to put names to faces. Oh, it still exists on a time-delayed basis. My wife occasionally has to ask in exasperation, “Who on earth are you talking about?” when, halfway through the drive home, I shatter a five-minute silence by blurting, “So THAT is who she was!” My wife has no idea who I am talking about because, invariably, my response is along the lines of “You know. That lady in the jeans and sweatshirt who nodded at us while my mouth was stuffed with sausage sammich. You know. She was What’s-her-Name’s neighbor.”

No wonder that my wife’s forehead is getting lines from being regularly creased in confusion. She has to live with me, and try to make sense out of such gibberish.

Last week, I found myself just over the hill behind our place at the annual pig roast sponsored by our local Sigel Volunteer Fire Department. Actually, I got in my car and drove the mile or so around that hill rather than traipsing over neighbors’ fields and up and down a steep slope, but you get the idea about how close to our house is the event site.

I knew about two dozen people by name, or at least I remembered about that many names while I was at the festival.

I bought my meal ticket from a nice lady later remembered as Kathy Rensel. I said hello to my brother-in-law’s sister and her husband Laird, but it wasn’t until I walked away that I recalled “Cathy.” To cheerily camouflage my memory hiccup, I had fallen back on the trick of cheerily saying, “Why, hello, there!” without mentioning a name. Why I remembered Laird’s first name but forgot Cathy’s when I have known them both for about the same two decades, I do not understand. But that is the state of my septuagenarian memory.

I did know Dave Gordon’s name. He and I expertly dissected the huge field of 2020 Presidential candidates because of course we are both political experts. In true curmudgeon fashion, we concluded that at this juncture, we don’t really like any of them.

Did you notice that “I” went to the pig roast, and “we” did not go? My wife was otherwise occupied in the commendably healthy pursuit of an afternoon bike ride through Cook Forest with friends.

That gave me delightful freedom of choice.

I will tell you that the menu included homemade cookies, cole slaw, pulled pork, rolls, corn on the cob, cheesy scalloped potatoes, lemonade, beer, sweetened and unsweetened tea and, did I mention, homemade cookies? No hot sausage, but the pulled pork was to die for.

I need not tell you which of those I ate. My wife reads these columns. My wife also oversees my diet in a commendable and loving effort to keep me alive. So let’s just leave it at “the menu offerings were delicious to those who ate them.”

I bought chances on this and that, of course. I even won one silent auction item, though I donated it back to the fire department. I value what the department offers us, both in terms of fire protection and socialization. I do not do anything of substance to aid our fire department, so I guiltily gave the department the “found money” value of the item.

Most of all, I enjoyed the company of folks I could nod to, and get nods back. We know each other from “neighbor” things.

Next up is our local church festival.

I can taste the sausage already.

¯¯¯

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.