MERMAIDS AND PIRATES PARADE
Today was the long awaited big day in Marshall. It turned out to be a blazing hot day. At 10 a.m. the Magic Market booths were humming and the streets were filling with people. Jamie was finally opening his used bookstore after being wiped out a year and a half ago by Helene flooding. With helpers he worked late into the evening sorting fiction alphabetically and putting books to still be sorted into a back room. My photos of Woodson Branch on an easel looked good in his window. Josh Copus was making signs and preparing to open his new container bar on the back porch of Zadie’s with hundreds of premade sandwiches and drinks ready to sell. Main Street was crowded with visitors from Asheville and further away. Along with the opening of the Arts Council yesterday this was a celebration of the second reopening of Marshall after the flood. To celebrate a large number of people, young and old, arrived in pirates and mermaids outfits, some planning to join the parade and many planning to watch.
There was a contest for the best costume in front of the courthouse in blinding heat. But during the afternoon clouds drifted in and by 4:30 p.m. when people were gathering at the studios to prepare their floats and to find their place in the parade a breeze was blowing and the air cooled so then when the parade left the studios, went across the long bridge to Marshall and then circled through town a couple of times with pirates and mermaids crowding the sidewalks as they cheered, sometimes sprayed with water pistols with children scurrying around picking up wrapped candy tossed from the floats, the day reached a crescendo of great fun and delight.
I took so many photographs of people in outlandish costumes that I am going backwards into the week and using some as preludes to this day.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 