Like many towns across America, my hometown got its start as an agricultural community. Once just a crossroads in the midst of farms and ranches, eventually the local growers formed a small town aptly named after the local topography and primary crop: Walnut Creek. Nuts and pears covered most of the local farmland, so I suppose it could just as easily been named Pear Creek. When I was growing up here, there was still a considerable amount of land devoted to orchards, and every home had at least one walnut tree on the property. There were only a few houses on our block at first, but soon the neighborhood was full. We were proud to boast a local department store. The town rolled up the sidewalks at 6 o’clock, and nothing was open on Sundays.
Fast forward about…well, forget how many years, just fast forward. OK, I’m 43. I moved here when I was 2. So fast forward 41 years. Satisfied?
The orchards are all gone now. The town is bustling and is a shopping mecca. We even have Tiffany’s. But one quaint custom from the old days that remains is the annual celebration of the harvest. The Walnut Festival takes place every fall, as it did when my mother was a girl, and probably for a long time before her memory. The weekend before the actual festival is the Walnut Parade, right down Main Street. Main Street is still only a two lane road, and retains a quaintness of years gone by. A few older buildings remain, but even the newer buildings have been built with an eye toward small town congeniality. Local families line the sidewalks, waiting for high school marching bands, local politicians, fire engines, and Boy Scout troops. One of the highlights is the local chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors. These men used to walk the route, dressed in white slacks and Hawaiian shirts, but those who are left are now frail, and ride in convertibles. Still, they get a grand round of applause the entire way, and most adults stand in respect as they pass.
The official mascot of the Walnut Festival and of the parade is King Walnut. I kid you not. King “Nut”, as he is known to his friends, is dressed in long velvet robes, carries a scepter, and wears a big walnut head with a crown on it. The eyes are huge with big Lucille Ball eyelashes, and he grins a blindingly white grin. He used to have one eye closed in a wink, but he got a remodel some years back, since that winking eye was taken as looking a little sinister. Small children were afraid of him. He still isn’t much of a looker, I’m afraid, but it’s hard to make a walnut seem warm and fuzzy.
This year my husband was sick, so he was allowed to stay home while I bravely toted all three kids downtown to watch the parade. The high point of the entire event was when pony driven carts pulling actors promoting a local play passed by. The ponies left a trail right down the middle of the road. Since I am mature and sophisticated, I immediately elbowed my daughter and whispered “Look, pony poop! Someone’s going to step in it!”
All three kids, um, four, if you count me, started to giggle. Even the youngest pointed and shouted “Doo doo!”. We eagerly watched each passing parade entrant, completely oblivious to their music, cheers, or costumes. We just watched their feet. When some boy scouts jumped and sidestepped right at the last moment, we pointed and laughed uncontrollably. When the high stepping cheer squad mashed right through it, we laughed even harder. And when the marching band pounded it right into the asphalt, well, I’m afraid we just lost it completely. Ah, yes. What a time that was.
The next week was the festival itself. It used to seem enormous to me as a child, but now it seems what it is: a small, local carnival. To my kids, however, it is as impressive as I found it at their age. The lights, the sounds, the games and rides, are all so exciting! They rode ponies (no poop in sight, it was a very well tended riding ring), rode the merry go round, took several trips down the super slide, and even dared the tilt-o-whirl. They tossed coins and rings, fished for rubber frogs bearing lucky numbers, and lastly, aimed ping pong balls at endless little fishbowls filled with water.
That was my favorite game when I was a kid. Back then, the fish were actually in the bowls. If you landed a ball in a bowl, that bowl and fish were yours. Now the fish are in big tubs. If you land a ball in a fishbowl, they scoop a fish out of one of the tubs and put it in a plastic bag. I remember standing there throwing ball after ball when I was little, and I just couldn’t win a fish. Finally the man running the game just gave me one. He told me I had already bought it ten times over. But this year, my daughter won one the old fashioned way.
She stood in line behind the other small winners, waiting her turn to have a baggied fish handed to her. Leaning over the railing and peering into the tubs of goldfish, she said helpfully to the man scooping “There are some dead ones.” He ignored her, so a little louder she said “I see two dead fish floating.” I nudged her to stop, but she just kept on, saying more loudly still “Eeww! Some of those fish are dead!”.
The man finally looked up briefly, and said heartily, “Oh, they’re just sleeping! Shhh! Don’t wake them up!”
My nine-year-old daughter raised her eyebrows, gave him a scornful look, and said definitively “No. They’re dead.”
So it was with no surprise as we walked away with her little goldfish in a baggie, whom she promptly named Joey, that I saw the little guy was not exactly an aggressive swimmer. I have told my family that there will be no more living creatures in our house until those that are there now are either in kitty cat heaven, or college. Hopefully the children will be the ones to go to college, and the cats to that other place. The rule for the fair was that if a fish was won, it would be taken to live at Grandma’s house, because she already has fish. We hightailed it from the fair to Grandma’s, where Joey floated in his bag to allow his water to adjust to the temperature of the tank, and then was set loose.
Grandma’s goldfish are big. Everything Grandma grows is big. Her cat looks like a small dog. The bigger fish sensed an easy target, and chased Joey around the tank. I didn’t think they looked all that hostile, but Julia screamed, hid her face, and begged Grandma to take Joey out before the other fish ate him. Being the good sport that she is, Grandma scooped out Joey and set him up in his own big bowl, left over from when Grandma last fooled herself that the fish thing would stop with one goldfish in a bowl.
Well, you may have already guessed, but Joey had passed on to goldfish heaven by the next morning. Julia took it better than I’d expected, but she was so disappointed that I promised we’d get another, and this one we would keep at home. At the pet store, my two sons also had to have their own fish, despite my feeble attempts to have everyone “share”. So instead of one fish in a bowl, we left with three baggied fish, and an aquarium.
My daughter must have ticked off the goldfish gods at that fair, because Sam, Joey’s replacement, only lasted a week. Dot kicked off after about six weeks. Flippy looks good, so far. You get attached, even though they are just fish. They wiggle their little fan tails, and come up to the glass when they see me. Still, secretly the overworked mom part of me, and don’t tell my daughter this, but secretly that part of me won’t be too disappointed when the aquarium is acquiring dust in the garage. I just don’t have the energy to take on any more life forms. I’m no good with plants, and I guess I’m not any better with fish. I seem to do well growing kids, however. Let’s hope next year a ping pong ball in a bowl doesn’t win you a baby. I’ll be sunk.