I printed a list from the Salt Lake Tribune last week.  It shows all of the weekly community festivals and events in Utah, and there are hundreds. 

Pleasant Grove has it's Strawberry Festival in June and the people in Mona are looking forward to July for Lavender Days.

All of these community festivals reminded me of how important these are to children because in the town where I grew up we looked forward to a once -a-year street party.

In Denmark, Wisconsin (just outside Green Bay) our community festival was the VFW Days Parade and Picnic.  For one weekend of the summer the town was actually humming! 

It all started on Friday night with the opening of Little League Baseball season.  The entire community would gather at VFW Park and each burgers and hotdogs cooked by the American Leigon Post and then watch 3 baseball games.    You could smell the food, and the beer and the exhaust from the pick-up trucks lining up in the outfield.  There was no band, just some squeaky old loudspeakers playing the sound of songs picked up by an industrial microphone leaned up against a old phonograph in the press box. 

The big fire truck from the Denmark Volunteer Fire Department was washed and parked nearby.  Children could climb on the back and pretend, and after the games there where fireworks. 

There was always the few guys in town, you know who they are, who got drunk and got loud and got arrested. 

But for me, the biggest part of that Friday night was the carnival.  It pulled into town on that morning and the workers were setting up the rides in a parking lot next to the community center. 

They were dirty and bearded and rough.  But, they always smiled as they answered the questions of the gaggle of kids on their bikes gathered to watch them work.  Were there any new rides this year?   How much do you make?  Can you give us free passes?  We all had questions and they lasted until the sun went down, way past the time we had to be home.

Saturday was the big day!  It began with the pancake breakfast and then at 10 in the morning....the parade!  Oh, what a show it was for a town of 1000 people.

The high school marching band, the shining fire truck again, the mayor in the only convertible in Wisconsin (or so we thought) and then the stars of the show.   It was all about the men who served.  They walked behind the American Flag, some of them in wheelchairs, some with canes, some with their grandchildren holding their hand. 

They walked proud.  This was just before Vietnam and just after Korea.  So, most of these veterans honored by this picnic and parade served in Europe or the Pacific during World War II.  The old ones served in the Big War....(google it).

And, they all wore red poppies. 

The little cardboard poppies were on sale everywhere that weekend.  Just a red circle, bent around the edges with a green pipe cleaner as a stem to twist around a button.  Each one had a little white tag that said, "I proudly wear this poppy as a symbol of peace and to honor those who fought for that peace".

I wore one of those poppies.  It seemed as if it was the law that special weekend. 

I understand better now how important that poppy is and what it symbolizes.

So, as I read the list of community festivals in our state, I can't help but wonder the meaning of each of them for the people in those towns.  How it will shape their futures and their memories of summer.

I am going to attend some of them this year.  I hope to see you there.