PumpkinFest:Town turns out to celebrate autumn
10/19/2008
By ZACK CINEK The Daily Journal
State Street sidewalks in downtown Ukiah were more crowded than Fisherman’s Wharf on San Francisco Bay in tourist season for the PumpkinFest parade late Saturday morning.
One man who was there early had a plate of nachos in his hand before 10:30 a.m. in front of Alex Thomas Jr. Plaza. On the plaza, about 15 behemoth pumpkins rested on palattes arranged on the landscaping where Scout-O-Rama by Boy Scouts of America was getting going. "That is one big pumpkin," an early passerby said.
At Scout-O-Rama, a hay-bale pyramid attracted children. At one time, before the parade started, five or more kids scaled the straw monument playing a game of king of the mountain.
Other parts of PumpkinFest looked like a carnival had rolled into the streets of Ukiah.
Between the courthouse and Schat’s Bakery and around the corner from there, seven air-up attractions towered above festival goers. Not all inflatable attractions loomed as tall as the others; one looked like a dragon and stood closer to the ground. Other attractions included a Ferris wheel, a climbing wall and a sack slide in the middle of the streets.
A vendors row continued for blocks on School Street, where mostly white tents served as storefronts for people selling wares ranging from Mendo Locals brand T-shirts and Bob Marley blankets to jewelry and art.
Scents of festival food emanated from booths and drifted over to the farmer’s market that was also in full swing for the day.
Back at Scout-O-Rama, local scout packs built a campfire in a container where children could stop by and smoke a marshmallow on a stick. Kip Webb, Cubmaster of Ukiah’s Pack 64, said the scouts would be camping out for the night in tents on the Plaza.
At one of numerous activities, The Great Hermit Crab Throw, festival goers paid to participate in a game similar to the traditional carnival game of tossing ping-pong balls to win the prize of a goldfish.
But it was tree crabs, not goldfish, that Jeff Wojcik was giving to winners of The Great Hermit Crab Throw. “It is something new, something different,” Wojcik said. The Great Hermit Crab Throw, he said, has been at PumpkinFest since day one. Wojcik said the crabs are tame and not mean or aggressive.
The crabs live well if they are fed and supplied with moist sand. “People come back and say they are alive,” he said.
Near the Crab Throw and at any point on the blocks of School Street, families walked through the closed street taking in the sites, and occasionally groups of children passed by at rates of speed greater than most of the others.
Sit on a bench in front of Poma TV and you may have seen children walking around with plastic baseball bats. A group of three kids walked by with one clobbering the other two with a neon-blue inflatable bat, for example. “This is a street carnival,” a father said to his son and he and his family moved swiftly down the sidewalk.
Zack Cinek can be reached at udjzc@pacific.net.
Ukiah Main Street Program
200 S. School Street
Ukiah, CA 95482
Phone: 707 462-6789
Fax: 707 462-2088
Monday - Friday
9:00 am to 5:00 pm
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