In the festival spirit
 
One of the things I like best about this part of the country is its festivals. There seems to be no end to them. Besides Springfest, the International Kite expo, Sunfest and all the stuff in between like the Boat Show, the Home and Condo Exhibition and the Wildlife Carving Competition, one of my favorites is the Delmarva Chicken Festival.
 
We came across the chicken festival years ago when we first started coming to the seaside for weekends. On one such occasion we happened to be in Salisbury when we noticed this strange, to us, celebration being held in an open field next to the town’s convention center.
 
We meandered through the variety of exhibitions, including one that displayed a colony of newborn chicks. Oddly enough this was of interest to us, who up until that time had spent our entire lives in urban settings. But the best treat of all was when we noticed the giant frying kettle.
 
The Paul Bunyanesque fry pan was 10-feet in diameter, capable of frying 800 chicken quarters at once in 160 gallons of blistering oil. We couldn’t resist, had to make a purchase. It was then that we first tasted the delicious, juicy chicken quarters. This gave meaning to the word “festival.”
 
From then on we watch for the poultry bacchanalia every year and try to attend. I can’t recall all the Eastern Shore towns we traveled to in the intervening years just to sink our teeth into the fabulous chicken.
 
Oddly enough, I grew up with little preference for chicken, but that was in my meat and potato days in New York. I learned to like what was called Southern fried chicken and was addicted to the unbeatable homemade, mythically therapeutic, steaming chicken soup.  But there is no chicken like Delmarva’s joyous fried chicken. So when the chicken event was held in Snow Hill recently we had to partake.
 
There was a heavy rain the night before we went. As a result the festival grounds were extremely sloppy even though the rain had stopped hours before we arrived. With every step in the town’s Byrd Park, where the event was held, water slopped over our sandals and doused us. It was uncomfortable. But we didn’t care, it was fried chicken time and we wallowed in gastronomical heaven despite wet feet.
 
But if I could  set epicurean delights aside for the moment, I’d like to talk about a different kind of festival to tickle the fancy of residents and visitors alike.  Some years ago I came across an event that sounds like a natural for this resort area and I’d like to draw it to the attention of local boosters and city fathers. It’s an adult tricycle competition and its held in Marysville, WA, a suburb of Seattle every June.  It’s perfect for O.C.
 
We could call it TrikeFest to suit our discriptive style.  This event is held during the annual Strawberry Festival and it could be imitated here to run in conjunction with the firemen’s convention or the volley ball championship or the Corvette drive-along or even as an aside to the annual White Marlin competition.  Or it could stand on its own.
 
The Marysville trike races started sometime in the 1970s, according to a story in Smithsonian magazine, and over the years the races got “bigger and crazier.” For instance, the course begins with a teeter-totter challenge for the trikers, then a slalom created by orange traffic cones, and a trough filled with water. 
 
At one point contestants must leave their trikes and dive head first through a hanging tire and then remount the trike for a scary ride over a plastic sheet made especially slippery by a layer of dishwashing soap.
 
To reach the finish line racers must overcome the most notorious of all obstacles – plunging through a 15-foot long pit filled with gelatin.  In Marysville they used 72 boxes of strawberry Jell-O and enough ice water to make it a desert fit for the 82nd Airborne.
 
From all accounts it is a tremendous success and draws large crowds every year.  The only equipment needed for competitors is a tricycle and a safety helmet, and plenty of flat terrain.  The sight of grownups pedaling furiously with bodies bent over steering posts is crazy.  But Americans love crazy contests.
 
Now if you don’t like the TrikeFest suggestion, I have another idea to consider.  It is something that could work well with the Delmarva Chicken Festival. It’s called a grape stomping contest, and it works this way...

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