We spend our summers directing a camp for kids in the northernmost county in Maine. We are located in the little town of Mapleton, which has an annual town celebration the last week of June, so we are always in the area for the yearly Mapleton Daze festivities. This year was no different, and just as intriguing.
Camp doesn't start for another day, so we've been able to participate in some of the events. We've also had the Johnson family with us this weekend. Their daughter, Brianna, will be working as a counselor in training this summer so her parents and brother came up a few days early. Last night our two families headed out to the Masonic Lodge for a chicken barbecue. For $9.00, we each got a platter of Cole slaw, potato salad, roll and half a barbequed chicken. The seating was at long tables, so we were able to mingle with the 'locals', several of whom we knew from past years. The best part, though, as the live music. The were four guys with a mean age of about 70 and a younger (60ish) female vocalist. They were actually surprisingly good, doing a set of country and rock-a-billy covers ranging from Patsy Cline to CCR. A handful of folks got up to dance, although I confess my family and guests were just a tad too reserved to join in.
Saturday morning was the annual Mapleton Daze parade, which Brianna, my daughter Rose and I were invited to juggle in. We awoke to steady rain, but we waited, and at 9:30 the rain stopped. We quickly proceed to the parade site (just 4 miles away) and found our position. The line up is always between the two potato fields on Dudley road, as opposed to the countless other potato fields in the area. We were sandwiched between Little Miss Washburn and Miss Preteen Easton. Brianna's dad counted over 20 beauty queens in the parade! Pageants are a huge deal in Aroostook County, Maine.
Brianna's mom and seven year old brother Caleb (who was totally being checked out by Little Miss Washburn!) walked with us in the parade and handed out fliers to invite people to camp this summer. Besides the plethora of beauty queens, it was a typical small town parade: fire trucks, kids on decorated bikes, Shriners in tiny cars; all the regulars.
When we got to the ending site, the elementary school, we were tired but had a lot of fun. As the last of the parade entries pulled in, it began to sprinkle, and within minutes it was raining heavily again. God, it seems, is equally concerned with the parade going on as He was with making sure the potato fields got watered. "He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil." Deuteronomy 11:14