Tom was on a mission. When he is in a crowd, foremost in his mind is navigating through it. I followed along behind and looked at booths and signs. Over in the distance on the left side of the photo is the Tipp City High School Football Stadium. A group of citizens are in the process of raising money to renovate it. This year they collected enough to redo the field. There is an overall plan and they choose sections of it to work on as the money is collected.
I think renovating the stands is next on their list. I hope so.
This was the sixtieth year for the festival. When it started, the Springhill Nursery had fields of mums planted in fields along the highway so chrysanthemums were the obvious choice for the festival's emphasis. Since then Springhill has been sold several times and no longer has the fields of mums but the name remains and so do mums at the festival.
Years ago when we were active in Cub Scouts with our boys, we were part of the Saturday morning parade.
Later on, I had a booth at the park where I drew charcoal sketches of visitors for ten dollars each.
There must have been more Tipp area artists and artisans at the park but Tom kept zipping along. I only saw Paper Alice. She had a booth at the park when I did and she has continued to have a booth.
She makes beautiful paper from the ads she receives in the mail. She includes bits of leaves and flower petals and tiny stones and spices from her kitchen to add interest. She sells her paper, creates art on her paper and teaches others how to make paper. In this picture, you can see everything she uses to go from start to finish.
And here is a closer look at her paper.
If you are curious about her work you can get more information at
www.paperalice.com
The last time we came to the festival in the park, food truck events were a fairly new type of event in our area. There were only a few food trucks at the park. This year there were many, many food trucks.
I photographed this truck because man with the red and black striped cap is one of the old-time baseball players. Tipp City has an old-time baseball team. There are others in the area. They play baseball according to the old-time rules. There was a baseball tournament in progress. It was between games for this player.
Local groups as well as food truck owners were selling food. I remember the Fire Department selling waffles back in the days when we were part of the Cub Scout group.
The park was crowded with booths. In them people were selling...
bamboo socks...
alpaca sweaters....
Halloween decorations...
Fairy Princess crowns...
and hundreds of other wares.
Tom knew where he wanted to stop...The Miami County Park District tent.
They had a step by step craft set up so people could make a paper flower.
As we were leaving, I looked down the path and there they were...the pick-up basketball players. I see players on these courts almost every time I drive by the park.
A pleasant visit to the park on a pleasant day. The sun was shining. The temperature was in the low 80s and there was a gentle breeze.
