Bazaar3

Bazaar2

"Grease is the word, is the word, is the word..."

And it's not 'greased lightning' either. Hardly! Making your way up this baby is one long, two day, tedious process. Lots of inquiries on yesterday's blog about the greased pole. So here it is, in all its 2011 glory. Ta da! The grease pole at St. Peter's Italian Festival. From top to bottom, I'd say the pole was about 30 feet tall, loaded with chestnut-yellow, thick grease. Back in my day, there was $100 bill attached to the pinnacle. Today, the object of the boys (why is it always boys attempting this maneuver?) attention was the small American flag flowing atop. As you might gather from these photos, the process towards the top involves assorted rags that help to eliminate the grease, and big bodies that the smaller lads stand upon as a base, before shinnying their way up to the top and glory. As for clothes and aroma, their t-shirts are ruined, a mess really, and they smell worse, if you ask me. By the way, the job is always done by Sunday evening, The flag has always been captured!

ps. In answer to the many inquiries of yesterday, I did NOT take a trip up the pole, but I did have to hold Elenka back!

Street Bazaar

Yesterday, after taking in The Wiz, the final show of the season at the Maine State Music Theater, we stopped by and enjoyed some of the atmosphere of the weekend's 86th St. Peter's Italian Street Festival. Federal Street was clogged with games of chance, Italian food and pastries, raffles, music, people and of course the grease pole. I recall the times that Teddy's mom would load her tan Oldsmobile up with a bunch of us guys and head in town. We always took in the bazaar on Saturday night. We got to stay out late and the sights, sounds and the darkness added so much. The highlight of the trip though was always the activity surrounding the grease pole with a hundred dollar bill resting at the top. Be the one to make it to the top and ol' Ben Franklin was yours. We always begged to give it a try, but all Mrs. Greene, standing among her friends, would do in return to our pleas , would be to tilt her head to the sky and let out a high pitched stream of laughter. Needless to say, Ben never graced our pockets on the ride home, but those were fun-filled nights of glee.

Theme Day: Open Air Market

Today, September 1, 2010, is Theme Day across the CDPB (CityDailyPhotoBlog) community. The PICNIC Music and Art Festival was held last Saturday, August 28, under sunny skies in Lincoln Park. Following the Great Fire of 1866 in Portland, the park was created to honor President Lincoln. It is a large rectangle boarded by Market, Federal, Pearl and Congress. Here are a couple of images of the day. You might recall; I'm drawn to vintage clothing with or without my camera hence this shot. Lots of old hippies and their grown children were in evidence manning the many creative booths. Now, if you're a political junkie, you might want to divert your eyes away from the text at this point. Glenn Beck, or even the whisper of him, was nowhere to be seen at this fabulous event!

Open Air Market2

Festival

The 36th Annual Old Port Festival was held yesterday under sunny skies, for the most part. If you came late you missed one of my favorite parts, the Shoestring Theater's larger than life puppets kicked- off the festivities parading down Exchange Street. If you like music, music, music, food, street performers, dogs, an American Idol finalist, Medieval fencing and fighting by the Society for Creative Anachronism, face painting and a 61 foot lobster roll then the streets of the Old Port was where you should have been Sunday. I was there for year 1 and can tell you that things have certainly been toned down a bit, but it's always a great way to welcome summer to the city!