Our friend Diann lives in Houston but works in Pleasanton, near Floresville, during the week. We usually let her and her husband David know when we plan to be at the farm, because sometimes they are there on weekends as well. As it turned out, Diann would be in Pleasanton working this weekend, so we planned to get together. She mentioned to Melinda that the Floresville Peanut Festival was being held this weekend and we might like to check that out.
I last attended the Floresville Peanut Festival when I was ten or eleven, I suppose. I remember little about it – the downtown parade where people on the floats tossed small plastic bags of Planter’s Peanuts to the people lining the streets, the “Sock Hop” in the high school gym, and the fiddler’s contest my dad wanted to hear. Farmers around Floresville used to grow a lot of peanuts and there’s a giant peanut statue on the courthouse square commemorating that fact. I read recently that fewer and fewer were doing so these days. Nevertheless, the 67th Annual Floresville Peanut Festival goes on.
By the time we learned that the festival was this weekend, we had already missed out on much of it. We were not present for the Coronation of the Court of the Mystical, Magical Universe (Queen Tunaep and King Reboog and their court – that’s Peanut and Goober spelled backwards). We had missed the parade that was held Saturday morning along with several children’s events. We’d missed the gun fighters, snake handlers, and petting zoo as well.
Diann came over from Pleasanton about dinner time and the three of us drove into town to check out the event. We had to pause on the way into town to allow a flock of wild turkeys to cross the road and enter the southern end of our property. We parked in front of the Church of Christ’s building and walked two blocks to the courthouse square. The streets around the courthouse were cordoned off and perhaps a thousand people mingled in the streets. To the side of the courthouse, the Bud Light Stage hosted live local country bands. In the street in front of the courthouse food vendors offered smoked turkey legs, kettle corn, gorditas, enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, bbq sandwiches, funnel cake, Italian ices, roasted corn cups, and fruit cups. We purchased some food tickets and each settled on our choice of street food entrees, and wandered around the square.
Behind the courthouse craft vendors offered their handiwork – a good selection of cedar lawn furniture, clothing and bags of various sorts, jewelry, yard art, and wind-chimes. On the south side of the courthouse was the arcade with a fun house, games, lots of carnival rides, and more healthy food.
We exchanged a few more food tickets for Italian ice and then pooled our remaining tickets to get a funnel cake. Sitting on the curb, down the street from the live music, Melinda held the funnel cake in her lap while the three of us picked at it until it was gone and Melinda was covered in powdered sugar.
The festival continues today, but it moves from its traditional downtown location to the events center out on the Pleasanton Highway (U.S. 97), near the San Antonio River. There’s an admission fee to the grounds today, but it includes samples from the chili and menudo cook-offs. The concerts tonight are bigger bands, so there’s actually a $10 admission fee.
We have made our plans for next year already, October 11-13. We’ll be bringing grandchildren to that one.
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