For 12 hours today, our village's main drag is closed.The strains of all-American music serenade us from two temporary stages. And from a dozen grills and smokers, the irresistible aroma of barbecue fills the air.
Raw Memphis blues and sultry jazz. Pulled pork, brisket and ribs, accented by sauces from sweet to dangerous, with homemade cobbler for dessert.It's a great country.
If you’re keeping score at home, this is our community's fourth summer festival in the last 30 days, and we're not tired yet -- not by a long shot.
In fact, a neighboring town's annual festival happens next weekend, with our favorite band closing the show. I think we'll hit that one, too, just for good measure.
Mrs. KintlaLake and I paid two visits to today's fete. Early this afternoon, when the crowd was light, there were no lines at the food vendors and we had our pick of tables in the beer garden. We struck up a great conversation with a representative of the local jazz-preservation society, trading music trivia for nearly an hour.
By the time we returned this evening, with the goal of sampling a slab of award-winning ribs, the place was nuts-to-butts packed. We took our place in line, no more than 50 feet from our slow-cooked quarry -- but since top-shelf barbecue isn't fast food, we knew it might take a while to close the distance."A while" turned out to be two-and-a-half hours.
Two killer blues bands came and went from the main stage. The sun set and darkness fell. We saw the lights go out on booths that simply ran out of food.
The way we looked at it, we would've been standing around listening to music for two-and-a-half hours anyway, so it was no hardship. The queue put us right at the foot of the stage, so we enjoyed the music up-close. The people sharing the wait with us were friendly and equally patient. In short, we had a fantastic time.The ribs, by the way, were outstanding.
