So last weekend, the family and I worked the Lemonade Booth at St. Dominic’s Festival. According to Shantel, we have been doing this for 15 years. Personally I think we have been doing it longer than that, but who am I to argue with my older sister.
In years past, I have blogged about this family tradition. For those that are new, here is the run down. Every year my parents, my sister and I (and our significant others if we have any at the time) work the festival. We sell Lemonade at a dollar a glass. Since the supplies, booth sponsorship, and workers are donate by our family the church makes pure profit on the sales. We even pay for what we drink. No one gets free Lemonade at the festival (although Dad will probably buy you one if you are a Police Officer working the festival or a member of the church Clergy). Our previous record for sales was 1900ish for a 19 hour weekend. This year we sold 2007 for the same 19 hour weekend.
It was a very busy and very hectic weekend. My body hurt each night by the time I reached closing. I know Shantel’s back had to be bothering her something fierce, and mom and dad were probably feeling the pain as well. My brother-in-law Matt got off the easiest, only having to work around half of the festival, but he wasn’t any slouch while he was there helping us. Tempers flared, words were spoken, but in the end we stuck together and tackled it like the well oiled machine that our family is. I have to say I was proudest of my niece Ayla who busted her butt to help out despite her young age. And she did very well to boot. I ran into some old friends from high school I hadn’t seen in years. My friend and coworker, Mrblong, even visited the festival and according to him had a good time.
During the start of the final day of the festival, my parents asked point blank if I thought we should do the festival next year. I didn’t have an answer for them at the time, and told them we should wait to see how the day plays out. When my sister found out about this she asked me, “You told them no. Right?”
Before the festival started on the last day, the church does a quick (even by Catholic standards) mass for all the festival workers under the food tent. Most who know me well know that while I generally don’t talk a great deal about religion to others, I am a fairly religious person. I just tend to flow outside of organized religion. The homily the priest delivered was about spreading God’s word. He mused that a converstation between God and Jesus after the resurrection would have gone something like this:
G: So who did you put in charge of spreading my word on Earth?
J: My friends.
G: The same ones that denied you, betrayed you, and ran away from you scared?
J: Yes.
G: So what’s your backup plan?
J: If they don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.
I thought about these words the rest of the day. Truth be told, I have been thinking about them all this week.
When we stop doing the festival, who will do it? I’m sure that the church could find people to run the both, but would they really have the best interests of the church in mind, or would they spend more time socializing and treating the festival like an obligation that they have to do because they have kids in Catholic School? Would they just decided to delete the booth from the festival line up, and if they did how long before it was just forgotten?
It would be nice to do other things on Memorial Day weekend, like going to MARCON, but I know I would miss one of the few activities we still do together as a family. I would miss the people we run into every year at the festival. I would miss the Lemonade.