Jar of Goodness 9.25.22: Old Munichburg Oktoberfest

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for this year’s Old Munichburg Oktoberfest.

I was very involved with our neighborhood organization from its beginnings in 2001 until 2020, when I realized I was pretty exhausted with it, with the whole thing.

I’ve been on the organization’s executive board, and we’ve been very active with the festival, too. So many meetings. So much hauling of stuff. So many phone calls, emails. Mailings. Talking to the media. The maps and the spreadsheets. I’ve been the music chair, the vendors chair, and I’ve served beer and brats. I’ve greeted vendors at 7 a.m. with my clipboard, and stayed until I was picking up trash out of the street after the day was over. I’ve helped vendors unload, and reload, their wares. I’ve wiped rainwater off of audience bleachers and beer garden chairs . . . there’s no end to the things that need doing in a festival like this. I was really tired of the whole thing.

But I went to the annual Oktoberfest yesterday and genuinely had a good time. I guess I needed to take a few years off.

It was good to see several familiar faces among the vendors: Summit Lake and Hummingbird wineries, Jamaican Jerk Hut, Coldstone Creamery, for example. I did miss seeing a lot, a whole lot, of the people I used to see before the pandemic. A&J Kettle Korn wasn't there, neither was Papa Hart's Pickles, and there were several crafters, too. And the awesome face-painting lady, Jeanette Dixon, of Lil Masterpiece Creations. She and her team really did create little masterpieces. But time marches on, I guess.

I’ve always loved the car show. If I walk to the festival on Broadway, the car show is always the first thing I see. This year a 1964 Dodge caught my eye. Except for being red instead of turquoise, and a different model, it was very similar to the 1964 Dodge I drove in college. Awww, so many happy memories.

Anyway, it was a good day. And yes, I did help out some. The festival isn’t back up to pre-pandemic levels, but that’s okay. It was a good day.