The Colrain City Cloggers
When I tell people I’m from a small town, I usually make a joke that we have more cows than people in our population. . . which might just be true.
We have dirt roads, depend on our vegetable harvest to help with the food bill, try to fix things ourselves with some duct tape and W-D40 (Olive oil works too by the way) and most everyone listens to country music.
Colrain was hit pretty hard by Tropical Storm Irene. We’re still finding bales of hay and farm equipment miles from their homes, roads collapsed and houses swept away. My little world survived and we had minimal damage on Church Street, but you still feel the pain for your neighbors. Around here, their struggle is your struggle.
Partly for this reason, and partly because I felt the need to get to know the people I run past on a weekly basis, I decided to attend the annual town fair this past Saturday – which was quite the "to-do"because it was Colrain’s 250th anniversary. I heard a rumor that the fair might not happen this year. There was so much damage from the storm that there was a question if we would be on our feet enough to have a party.
The powers that be (and I agree) felt it was exactly what we needed.
The elementary school field was set up to look like a mini fair without the rides. But the familiar smell of fried deliciousness wafted through the air, and that’s all you really need to qualify something as a fair.
Read the rest of the essay and see Kelsey's photos on her Holy Pajamas! blog:
http://klerowski.blogspot.com/2011/09/colrain-city-cloggers_21.html.
