1970s Fun at the Maine Potato Festival

by Cheryl Dean Everett

Our sleepy little town was up to something. You could almost feel the excitement in the air. We Dean kids could tell. The swimming pool, that we almost daily frequented in the summer, was closed to us normal customers for a few days. They were having swimming races there from the looks of things, with all those little colored triangles on rope marking out swimming lanes. Shoot! Too bad we weren’t able to go swimming as usual, because it was pretty hot out.

Oh well, on the bright side, our lack of access to the outdoor pool was just part of the buildup of events for the annual Maine Potato Blossom Festival in Fort Fairfield. That meant we kids could find other activities of interest to amuse ourselves.

On these beginning days of festivities, we could sometimes hear the rata tat tat of drums in the distance. Bet it was the high school band practicing for the parade. Of course somewhere else in town some group would be decorating a float. Wonder if we’ll see horses in the parade this year, I mused. Maybe some neat old cars with funny-sounding klaxon horns.

I guess you could say most everyone was excited about the happenings of festival week, especially if you were a kid. Some folks were even parking their cars on Main Street early to get a good viewing spot. In some parking lots vendors would be setting up BBQs or getting a flatbed ready for folks to sit on to get a better view of everything on parade day. A few hours before the parade, some folks, with their pickup trucks parked on the street, would be sitting in the back of the trucks chatting with friends who walked by, with lawn chairs and coolers at the ready.

Since my home was on Center Street, we kids would just walk down to Main Street for the festival events. We’d walk over from Center to Fisher Street, walk up the hill, climb a staggered retaining wall at one house for fun, and then descend past the Plymouth Hotel to Main Street. One year we could even see, as part of the program, a hot air balloon rising between the houses on Fisher Hill.

Oh boy! They’re barbecuing chicken in the parking lot of the Avis Dress Shoppe, across from the hotel. Even though we couldn’t afford to buy anything as we passed by, the smells were heavenly.

Now to find a good spot to watch the parade amongst the crowd. Since there were three or four of us usually, we needed to squeeze in somewhere. The street seemed to be full of spectators on each side, so after some hunting around, we’d settle down to watch.

The hubbub was exciting and so unusual for our little town. Sometimes during the festival, we would even get a visit from relatives and some cousins would join us for the parade.

Of course, every kid would want to step out of the crowd to grab what people were throwing from their float or vehicle. It was like collecting prizes to eat later on our way back home. No doubt we’d be sporting a few sunburns after a hot but exciting afternoon.

Things weren’t over once the parade was done, though. Later that evening, when the sun went down and the day cooled off, it was time to go back downtown. This would be one of the rare occasions when we got to be out after dark on Main Street. Tonight there would be a street dance.

Of course, it wasn’t the dancing that attracted us kids so much…we were a little shy about doing that. It really was just the event.

We got to hang out by the street lights and see what friends might show up. We also got to see how the older kids acted. There might even be some adults checking things out, too.

The DJ would get things going for the crowd in the parking lot of what was then the First National Grocery Store (where Hillside IGA currently is). One tune I remember him playing that seemed to get everyone going was “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris. If no one was dancing before, this tune was a way to get them started.

All in all, the Maine Potato Blossom Festival was a bright spot in the summer for a small-town girl like me when events like this brought the community together in ways that were truly exciting for us kids. They were different times then. It was more of a homey, innocent time where we didn’t look for huge events, like the kinds with lots of lights and spectacle, to impress us. Just a gathering of folks in the community, doing what they could for the yearly event of the potato blossom festival, was good enough for us.