Bedford Day 2014
Bedford Day is loud
Last Saturday was Bedford Day, and the boys were very excited. Since we had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon Mama and Lijah stayed home, but Harvey, Zion, and I were up to town in plenty of time to get a good seat for the parade.
giddy anticipation
Unlike some other parades, this one doesn't have too many musical units, or any clowns; what it does have is many loud trucks—Hanscom snow plows, DPW loaders, and fire trucks from all the surrounding towns—along with local politicians, martial arts schools, and kids sports leagues. And their all tossing out piles of candy.
free-for-all
Aside from our parental doubts about how much candy our kids need to have at any one time, this bonanza of sweets has another downside: kids between 9 and 13 or so are driven mad by the bounty and spend the whole parade in a frenzy of accumulation, mostly blocking the view of the adults and little kids sitting obediently on the curb. This year was better, though both because at the start of the parade I spoke sharply to some suspicious-looking youths nearby—they went somewhere else—and because Zion and, especially, Harvey are much better at scrabbling for treats themselves than they were in years past. Here's Zion with some of the booty.
better than Halloween!
After the parade we headed over to the fair, which was packed with an overwhelming number of people. The boys snagged some free balloons and petted the 4H animals, and we ate lunch while watching karate and dance demonstrations. But the highlight of our fair experience was the library book sale. Whether at the main sale in the library our out at the auxiliary booth, all three of us were happy to look at books for quite a while.
fair reads
And with our lunch from home and all the candy, the only money we spent was five dollars on books. A wonderful and successful day at the fair!
(Now all we have to do is make the leftover candy... disappear.)