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Newcomer Discovers the Charm Of the Old Town Fall Festival
By Nichole Butler
This past Sunday (Oct. 9) was the perfect day to take a stroll down rue St. Francois Street. One might ask why. Well, I do suppose that the weather was too lovely to take my daily walk on the treadmill in the basement, but it mostly has to do with the fact that this year’s Old Town Fall Festival was huge!
Street stilt walker
As anyone who would recall from my past articles, I am not from Florissant. My relationship with the city of Florissant is still in that “getting to know you” stage. So, after a morning of making the pathetic attempt at organizing our personal in-home library, I slipped on my walking shoes and grabbed my car keys.
I have absolutely no idea why I decided to drive my car to the festival. For me, it is an automatic response when going anywhere. Out in the Missouri country-land where I grew up, everything is pretty far away and one easily gets in the habit of driving a distance. The idea that I can just walk to the market or the library has yet to set in. I wish that it had, though; because I spent more time looking for a parking spot than it would have taken me to walk from my house!
As soon as I parked my car (admittedly having no idea what street I parked on, which caused me to have a great deal of fun finding my car when I left the festival) I walked over a block or two before I got to rue St. Francois.
The first thing I noticed, to be honest, was that a ton of people had brought their dogs. Dogs of all sizes were everywhere I looked. I was pretty amazed that they all weren’t barking like crazy and trying to chase one another. (I learned later of the Fido Follies festival event that brings out a lot of dog lovers and their pets)
Then, I turned around. I could not believe the sight of it! Was every citizen of Florissant attending the festival this past Sunday afternoon, because the street was flooded with people (I noted several in Cardinals baseball shirts and hats!) and the festival seemed to go on forever!
Suddenly, I wished the boyfriend was with me. Not because I was nervous about being the “new kid on the block”, but because I knew he would have really enjoyed this.
Storyteller in Old Town
Booths lined both sides of the street. Local businesses and citizens displayed their merchandise. Children were painting pumpkins. A librarian was reading children stories while sitting on a haystack. Live bands and an acapella choir were performing. A man on stilts dressed in a giant pair of overalls was standing in the middle of the street making balloon animals. Everyone seemed to be eating “Meat on a Stick”.
The Great Wall of Old Town
Then, I saw what I thought to be one of the most fun things ever. I heard people calling it “The Wall”. A long cement wall was completely covered with sidewalk chalk. People had drawn pictures and wrote their names and quotes in all sorts of colors and fonts. One couple had written that they had been together for 38 years. Aww! So, of course, I had to contribute my own little bit of creativity, grabbing both a green and a pink piece of chalk, I wrote the boyfriend’s name next to mine with our anniversary date and drew a heart around it.
It was so neat to walk down the entire length of The Wall reading what the citizens of Florissant had written, and was definitely my favorite part of the festival. I mean, how cool is that? The whole community coming together right there on a cement wall, turning something plain and boring into an interesting centerpiece for the festival!
Once again, a new Florissant experience let me escape from the realities of daily chores and obligations. The Old Town Fall Festival brought me in a little bit closer and I fell a little bit more in love with this beautiful city. It is far from the country hills and the alpaca farm down the road from where I grew up, but it has a quaint character all of its own.
