We went to the Brooks County Skillet Festival in Quitman, Georgia. It was their fifteenth year. The Brooks County Chamber of Commerce hosts a 5K run and a popular event, the Skillet Tossing Contest. It wasn’t held close to where we were, so didn’t get to watch, but we were told the competition wasn’t for distance like in the old days. That became too dangerous, so instead, now it’s accuracy.
It was our first event with our new tent. The new tent is customized on all four sides: the Barrett Book Shop logo on top, and my name on the valances. It’s twenty pounds lighter than our older tents, so I could easily roll it from the truck to our assigned spot. Because it is customized, we no longer have to install a ten-foot banner like we did on our older tents.
With the older tents, we had a second banner we could use on the second tent or install on the first tent if there was foot traffic behind us or along one side. But installing and removing banners added more steps to Farmerman’s list at setup and teardown.
We appreciated the generous site. We had plenty of room to expand our tables outside of our ten-foot by ten-foot tent.
We always begin watching the weather forecast for an event ten days in advance. We are particularly interested in monitoring the temperature and the possibility of rain.
We have stayed home from events because of rain. Books don’t do well in humidity but can be destroyed by rain.
As far as temperature is concerned, the coldest event we’ve attended was 28°F. I can’t explain why we even stayed, but we set up and huddled around our propane heater. It finally warmed up enough for people to venture out and come to the event.
We knew the temperature would be chilly on the morning of the Skillet Festival, so I was prepared with layers. What I didn’t prepare for was the wind. The forecast said 10-15 mph winds. What I hadn’t considered was how much the steady wind of 15 mph affected everything we did.
I spent 30 minutes trying to put one tablecloth on a table and finally gave up. I created a new look for booths. No tablecloth.
I had my river rocks to keep the wind from blowing the pages and covers and permanently curling them, but I didn’t have nearly enough for all my books. I created another new look for booths. Books in a bin. I still had one Book One of each series on the table, with river rocks on the covers.
I made a slight change to my usual patter. I began, “Move the rocks,” then continued with my normal, “Pick the book up and read the back.”
Nobody minded the slight inconvenience. In fact, while we chatted, a few readers rearranged the rocks to make them look neater.
Despite the wind, we had a great day. I talked to a lot of readers and sold a lot of books.
When the festival ended at four, we’d been assaulted by steady winds for ten hours. Thankfully, the truck was nearby, and we began loading the truck. While FarmerMan loaded the bins of books and the tables, I unclipped the straps that had tethered the weights to the tent. The weights had done a great job of keeping our tent in place.
As I removed the last strap, the wind caught the tent, sending it sailing away. I grabbed for the leg in front of me and missed. Fortunately, another leg soared by. I grabbed it and held on as the tent dragged me toward the street. FarmerMan grabbed me and the tent before we caused a traffic incident. He folded up the tent and loaded it into the truck.
On our way home, we decided I probably won’t do that again, but I’m secretly certain there will be something else.
When we were home, we unloaded the bins, leaving everything else for the next day. We celebrated our successful day with pizza and homemade cookies.
