2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 1, 2018

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A Shot of a Ferris Wheel on the Day Before the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, August 30, 2018

Last year I attended the opening night of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival for the first time in my life. While I’ve attended previous festivals, I generally tended to blow off opening night and show up on the first full day of the festival.

This year I wasn’t able to attend opening night, mainly because I was helping out with a special project in Takoma Park where we were aiding a man who was required to do a job interview via a smartphone app. (I wrote a post about it because it was the first time I had ever heard of a job interview being conducted in this way. I have a feeling that doing a job interview via smartphone app is a harbinger of things to come for job seekers in the future.) So I reverted to previous years where I didn’t attend the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival for the first time until Saturday.

This time last year the weather was not only cooler than usual but it rained as well. For the first time ever I wore a hooded sweatshirt and long pants to the festival. This year it was completely the opposite, especially in the morning and early afternoon. The weather was cloudy, in the high 80’s, and the humidity was very thick. Just walking around the festival was a miserable experience and I grew tired pretty quickly.

I took the free shuttle over to the festival grounds where I saw that the Greenbelt City Hall had lowered its flags to half-staff to honor the recent passing of Senator John McCain.

One new thing I noticed this year was the concrete barriers that had chalk art on them.

The Greenbelt Elementary School PTA had its used book sale, which was very popular as people shopped for bargains.

Saturday was Community Day where various local groups and businesses had their information booths where they gave out flyers, brochures, and sometimes free goodies like candy, pens, and pencils.

I shot the Chick-fil-A cow mascot.

The Old Greenbelt Theater had a poster for the movie that it was currently showing, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.

The Greenbelt Makerspace had its open house where it displayed its computers, robots, and various types of electronics and maker tools.

The carnival midway was lively as people ate food, went on the rides, and played some of the midway games.

After a while the heat and humidity got to me so I ducked inside of the Greenbelt Community Center so I could cool off in the air conditioning. There is an art exhibition highlighting three local artists that’s currently going on until October. I really liked the art on display in that room so much that I took a few pictures. I especially liked the ones by Jim Doran because I found his skeleton and skull art so interesting and whimsical to look at.

The main reason why I was at the festival on Saturday was because I had entered this mixed-media piece in the Greenbelt Labor Day Art show called Robot in the Park.

I wrote a blog post about this piece a few months ago so I suggest clicking on this link if you want to learn about the story and the creative process behind this piece.

I submitted my work to the Greenbelt Labor Day Art Show early on Thursday evening before the festival began. One of the conditions of participating in this show is that I had to sign up for a one-hour volunteer shift sometime during the weekend. I signed up to work on Saturday from 2-3 p.m. so I had plenty of time to eat an early lunch, take the free shuttle to the festival grounds, and walk around a bit. I was even able to view the Greenbelt Labor Day Photography Show and the art show itself before my shift began. I found out that my piece had won a second place ribbon in the mixed-media category, which thrilled me. That ribbon meant that I could attend the award ceremony that was scheduled on Labor Day itself where I would collect my prize and receive public recognition.

So I served my one-hour shift then I decided to walk around the festival some more. I found that the weather had cooled off a little bit so it made walking a bit more pleasant even though the humidity still remained high. I decided to sit at one of the tables outside the Greenbelt Makerspace where I sorted through the photos I had taken so far. At one point an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in a while stopped by and we chatted a bit. At that point the weather turned darker and I saw lightning flashes. It eventually started to rain. Fortunately I was underneath an awning so I could watch the rain while staying dry. At one point the sun came out so there was that unusual phenomenon of raining while it’s sunny at the same time. (When I was a kid, I used to be told that such weather meant that the devil was beating his wife.) When the rain started to taper off into a drizzle, a rainbow suddenly appeared.

By the time the rainbow appeared I was hungry so I walked over to one of the food vendors where I ordered a large cheese crab pretzel. The weather had cooled off considerably and it was pleasant walking outside. The only downside was that it was wet everywhere from the rain so I walked back to the tables under the Greenbelt Makerspace awning and consumed my dinner there. I resumed sorting through the photos I had taken that day until night fell. I walked over to another food booth where I ordered a vanilla ice cream cone with a chocolate dip top and ate that. I also took a few night photos of the festival.

I didn’t stay long because my body had grown tired from walking around the festival in high humidity earlier and it was hard finding a dry place to sit due to the rain. I decided to pick up the next free shuttle bus and head home.

Next in This Series

2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 2, 2018
2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Parade, September 3, 2018
2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 3, 2018
The Day After the End of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 4, 2018