Event of the Month

It's a fine autumn day, a great time for a festival. So it is that my friends Linda Felback, John Hay, and Jill Welch decide to join me at Mesa's Fine Folk Festival. The two-square-block chivaree occupies the town center at Main and MacDonald streets, and, on this Sunday afternoon, a stroll through the colorful booths and displays, soaking up sunlight, is all we need to make us content. Maybe, we speculate, a little too much sunlight.

WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN A WARM ARIZONA DAY IN NOVEMBER AT MESA'S FINE FOLK FESTIVAL?

"Hey!" exclaims Linda. “Get a load of those hats!” Rakish in straw and flirtatious in felt: three racksful of chapeaux, all decorated with gaudy feathers, peacock and pheasant and heaven only knows what else. Linda grabs a straw cowboy hat and sticks it on John's head. He looks sheepish. Jill and I look pretty cute, we think, in broad-brimmed Panama hats, but, alas, they're more than we can afford.

Linda, with her dark hair and boldly drawn features, looks spectacular in a red fedora. We try to talk her into buying it. Perfect, we coo, with the red suede suit she also has not yet purchased. She says she'll think it over.

This party swims in color and activity, yet a kind of laidback élan pervades the place. Nylon “wind riders” multicolored spirals that twirl in the breeze catch our eye, and we purchase a wood-letter carving of my son's name. Sipping cups of gourmet coffee, we visit the elephant and the llama, and Linda shakes hands with a trained monkey. A band gets ready to strike up some popular tune, while a local radio deejay, broadcasting from a trailer, chatters happily over the air.

As we continue to amble, some amazing creations come to light. We are startled, for example, by a blue metal sculpture that looks a lot like the aliens in Cocoon. Does the artist know something, we wonder, that we don't?

Earrings shaped like hot peppers; Christmas ornaments; handmade quilts; stained-glass lamps and mirrors; silk-screened Tshirts; barbed-wire saguaros; appliquéd sweatshirts; New Age crystals; copper jewelry; beads of glass, wood, and metal. It's an Orgy of kitsch! We bounce from one exhibit to another like marbles in a pinball machine.

Just as we start to feel hungry, we're confronted with an outpost of Hester's Texas Style Barbecue, a Mesa establishment. What we get from the cheerful proprietors is down-home soul food: homemade Cajun sausage, barbecued ribs, and red beans and rice. Replenished, we move on.

A voter registrar invites us to sign a petition. How convenient! I take the opportunity to inscribe my recently changed address in the voting rolls.

We are on our way out when we pass a red knit outfit. The skirt is long and flowing, the jacket and T-shirt appliquéd with fabric in a lush abstract print. “There it is,” Jill and I announce. “Linda, you have to have that costume. It's perfect

WHEN YOU GO

Mesa's Fine Folk Festival will take place November, 6, 7, and 8. To get there from Phoenix, take Interstate 10 to U.S. Route 60 (formerly the Superstition Freeway) and proceed to Country Club. Go north about two and one-half miles to Main Street. For more information, call Mesa Town Center, (602) 890-2613.

with the red hat!” She looks it over. We can see she is tempted. “No,” she reflects. “I really want that red suede suit.” “Either one will go with the hat,” we remark.

Here we have to part to go to our separate cars. As John, Jill, and I walk toward mine, we glance back at Linda. She's returning to the fair. And, by golly, she's headed for the hats. M