Webster Fall Festival

continued

our local history this way.

At the entrance, we wait patiently while the ticket seller finishes his conversation with (now lame duck) state representative Pam Byrnes. They both apologize for holding us up, but I reassure them that this is how it should be--chatting casually on a first-name basis with your representative in the clear autumn sunshine, local politics in the actual locality, real old-fashioned conversation as opposed to virtual sound bite.

The festival is jointly sponsored by the Webster United Church of Christ and the Webster Township Historical Society. While the three girls check out all the pies and jams and handicrafts for sale at the country store, five-year-old Little Brother beelines straight for the tractor train ride--a train of brightly painted oil barrels on wheels, pulled by a little red tractor, the "Iron Barn Express." There is also a hayride on a flatbed trailer stacked with hay, pulled by a John Deere tractor. A row of antique John Deere and Kubota tractors are on display. There is a bloodhound tracking demonstration and a border collie herding demonstration, and a big pile of straw for the kids to jump around in and throw at each other. The 4-H kids are there with their animals--horses, ponies, goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, and a box of the cutest calico kittens--free to a good home. ("No.")