Bits 'n' Pieces

Haircuts & Beer

Last week when I told you about Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA, I forgot to mention one of the interesting sights along the road on our trip. Between Quakerstown and Coopersburg, we passed an old-fashioned looking barber shop whose sign was unusual in the sense that it was a wooden cutout of a 5’ to 7’ beer bottle. The barbershop, “The 1st and 10,” advertised what appeared to be sort of high prices. A man’s haircut was $21 and a child’s was listed at $17. At the bottom of the sign were the words “Free Beer.” There was another fairly large sign at the edge of the parking lot again proclaiming “Free Beer.” Would you be surprised to hear the parking lot was full? I guess “Free” especially when it pertains to beer is a draw. I wonder how many men in town are sporting really short hair?!?

(Incidentally, The Big Guy’s been talking about getting his hair trimmed. He says he’ll be back in a few hours! Maybe he‘s not going to the Hair Cuttery around the corner.)

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Havre de Grace Seafood Festival

Yesterday, while my sister was away for the evening and we were actually alone, The Big Guy and I decided to go to dinner. Instead of a restaurant, we stopped at a Seafood Festival being held in our local park (the one where we go for the Friday concerts.) This is an annual event and usually well-attended. Some groups even plan bus trips to the event from considerably far away. The view of the Chesapeake Bay from this park just enhances the concept of a seafood festival. This is a free event and parking is also free so just “dropping in” is easy.

Since we arrived very late in the day, only about 2 hours before closing, we lucked out and found an ideal parking spot right at the edge of the park. (Many folks were parked 5-6 blocks away.) This is not to say the crowd was thin although it may have been more mobbed earlier. It was one of the bigger crowds I’ve witnessed there despite the heat. It was a fantastically beautiful day but one of the two hottest days we’ve had this year.

It was tough to choose among the 25 or so seafood vendors but we settled on an order of conch fritters and fries to start things off. They proved to be delicious. Amazingly, we were even able to find two seats at a table so we could eat in comfort.

After strolling through the rest of the food area we did traipse into the craft section. At one time they had allowed the crafts to dwindle down to less than 20 vendors and the quality had slipped. I was thrilled to find they have remedied that and there were at least 70 craft booths this year and all were of great quality. I was not in the mood to chat today so I merely strolled through without getting to know any of the vendors or taking individual photos. (I did like some great water-oriented copper sculptures that you can view on the artist’s website at www.coppercreations.biz. I even saw one of their larger pricier items leave with a buyer.) All of the displays were well-done and professionally polished looking. Apparently, they are back to truly jurying the participants. The excellent news is, folks appeared to be buying and not just low end stuff !

We returned to the food area and this time tried some rock fish bites (other parts of the country refer to rockfish as striped bass). Again, we were very happy with our choice. We sat for a while and listened to the live music, nothing spectacular, but still nice to listen to. One young girl (about 14) came up out of the audience and did a fantastic job of singing Martha And the Vandella’s Heatwave with just the guitarist during a break! The last group we heard did some soothing Eagles and Beatles tunes and held a solid audience. (Of course, they were playing under a large tent so maybe some were just seeking shade!)

It was a nice but brief respite from our stressful week.