Foster City Arts & Wine Festival, 2008

Thrill-seeking youngsters gravitate to the excitement of amusement parks like Great America and Marine World, but give me the sedate (some might say somnolent) pace of the local community fair. Admission and parking are free, marketing slickness is refreshingly absent, and friendly faces from the neighborhood can be seen wandering or even staffing the booths.

Foster City held its 37th Arts and Wine Festival last weekend under cloudless skies. Music from local bands floated by picnickers on the lawn up to Ferris wheel riders across coned-off Shell Boulevard. Teenagers tried their luck at coin toss games, vainly trying to win stuffed animals that would never get a second look from them at WalMart. The featured art was a quilt display attended by ladies dragging along their husbands and kids for their esthetic edification; most appeared unappreciative.

Before The Opening

Fair-goers scarfed up the varied cuisine that they would never find along the plastic restaurants on El Camino Real (no knock, I go to them all the time). On a warm afternoon kids need something familiar and refreshing after dining on spicy stews, garlic fries, or Hawaiian plate lunches, so our church again sold packaged ice cream bars. After paying for the ice cream and freezer rental, we will forward all proceeds to the Heifer project, which donates farm animals to overseas villages.

We helped open the booth on Sunday morning. It was very light duty, because the crowd didn’t drift in until the afternoon. Our take was less than $50. The youngster wanted to visit his friends at other exhibits, so we agreed to keep in touch by text-message and cellphone. In that respect at least, this was not our grandmother’s community fair. © 2008 Stephen Yuen