A Need to Share

Posted by Amy Jones on June 13, 2007 - 16:56 PM

There’s some stuff so great that you’ve got to share it with someone - a new flavor of ice cream, an entertaining reality show, a story about your high-school ex losing all his hair and living in a trailer with three ferrets.  And on such occasions when you really want to share but turn around to find you’re all alone and out of cell range, it makes you sad. 

Very sad.

Case in point: The Annual Prairie Plains Prairie Festival was slated for May 25th.  It’s been a wet spring in Central Nebraska, so the prairie is beautiful, flowers blooming everywhere, green as far as the eye can see.  The barn roof sitting proudly on the foundation of the Education Center was eager to be seen by guests that had only read about it and couldn’t yet picture the majesty of its setting.  The farmyard was mowed, volunteers had their assignments, the band was in tune and the food was ordered (enough to serve 300 guests.)

Did I mention that it’s been a wet spring?

Tuesday night before the Festival we got 1.5 inches of rain.  Wednesday morning the extended forecast looked like this: Wednesday night, 2-4 inches, Thursday, 60 percent chance of rain, Friday, winds gusting up to 30 mph with a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms Friday night.

More rain and high winds would have meant no hayrack rides and no bonfire.  Tours of the Ed Center would have been limited because frankly, the mud surrounding the site isn’t that inviting.  Our promise of a relaxed evening of good food, music and beautiful scenery became, “Come to our party.  Get your shoes wet and have a sandwich.”  Kind of like inviting kids to a circus where the clowns are on strike and the elephants have gout, “but we’re having a sale on last year’s cotton candy.”

So we cancelled it.  No party, no fun, no festival.  It was more work to cancel the thing than to have it.  We made phone calls to sponsors and guests and cancelled the food and the band, second-guessing ourselves the whole way.  Will the weather be bad or not?

Well, it turns out it wasn’t.  The evening was beautiful, the wind was calm and it didn’t rain.  It left us still wanting to share – the scenery, the food, the story.  So we’ll try again later in the year and hope for good weather.

Maybe we’ll serve ice cream.