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Wellington cool
Well wasn’t that a simply superb Pumpkinfest? The weather couldn’t have been better, and the village was teeming with people full of goodwill. Congratulations to the organizers.
The orange beanie is quickly becoming the beacon of Pumpkinfest attendance. Had anyone been so fortunate as to scale the ‘ladder to the skies’ on top of our new fire truck, he or she would have experienced the sensation of seeing a mass of orange crested ants scurrying about among more drably coloured species. I also experienced the orange beanie effect for myself later on Saturday afternoon when I went into Picton to run an errand. Apart from the tumbleweed being blown along, I saw one or two people on Main Street. Both of them stopped me and asked the same question: “Are you from Wellington?” “Yes, I replied, how did you know?” “We don’t get too many of those type of ball caps here,” they replied. “That’s just Wellington cool,” I replied as quickly as I could after removing my headgear.
Yes, there were a lot of people at Pumpkinfest; so many people, in fact, that the cars were parked along Main Street way east of Tim Hortons. That will give the editor of The Times some pause for thought. Will the headline be “Pumpkinfest a Smashing Success,” or will it be “Wellington Faces New Parking Crisis”? My money is on a third option: “Council Squanders Sewage Opportunity.”
And the parade was a humdinger. The veterans led off and received a deservedly hearty round of applause. Then came the pipe band (recently added to the endangered species list). Then came our MP, MPP, mayor and councillor all walking in step, which I thought was a nice touch. Then came the Shriners: what would a parade be without them? And after that came our massive vegetables, vintage cars and floats. And the Wellington Dukes, out in force (although some of them seemed as if they’d sooner be on another planet, but then again, in fall a young man’s fancy turns to hockey, not to sitting on a parade float throwing candy at street urchins). And right towards the end, that new fire truck. If the local funeral home is running low on business, I’m sure that it could arrange to sponsor the blasting of the horn on that rig. It scared the living daylights out of me, and I consider myself a sophisticated sort (orange beanie aside) who has heard a fire truck before. That truck is so big, I wonder if they’ve considered turning the thing into a mobile vacation rental when it’s not being used for emergencies?
And like everybody else, I got quite a kick out of “Donald Trumpkin” marching in the parade. Which made me wonder if next year, we might be able to get the genuine article to appear; because he just might be looking for a few paid gigs. After all, he’s working assiduously to devalue everything he touches: his presidential ambitions, his party, his family, his company, his brand, the democratic process. It’s all turning to ashes for him, like in some Greek tragedy; except that in Greek tragedy you normally witness a person with some nobility brought down. I would say that Donald Trump is on his way to becoming America’s Benny Hill, although perhaps without the subtlety of wit that the late, great British comic exhibited. Can you picture Donald Trump chasing half-naked beauty pageant queens around at a frenzied pace, just as Benny Hill did in his prime?
If Donald Trump did march in our Pumpkinfest parade, he would be the first participant who would not have to wear a beanie to get into the sprit of the event. We could easily outfit him with a custom fitted (first class, by the way) pumpkin-shaped jumpsuit. Which reminds me of one of the best insults I have ever heard (other than ones directed at me). Speaking at a dinner in 1974, then-president Gerald Ford said of his opponent for the Republican nomination, “Governor Reagan does not dye his hair…(pause for comic timing effect)… He is just turning prematurely orange.” I hope history remembers him for that remark, rather than for Lyndon Johnson’s comment about his perceived limited ability to both ambulate and masticate concurrently (which was also a pretty good insult in its own right).
But I am digressing. This orange beanie: of course it’s corny. But Wellington doesn’t care. The orange beanie is Wellington cool.
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