Little Cousin Jasper 2010 Part 1

The Little Cousin Jasper Festival took place this past weekend. It has become one of the biggest events in Rensselaer. The County Fair exceeds it, but it matches up with the JC Cruiser Car show and Cruise Night, and it is bigger than Taste of Rensselaer or Oktoberfest. (By the way, I have heard rumors that this year's Oktoberfest may follow Art in the Alley into the history books unless some new people step up to take it over.)

Friday is a rather slow day at Little Cousin Jasper. It is entertaining to watch people set up their tents. I got to help with a couple and I am sure I looked quite comical as I tried to figure out which poles when where and which buttons had to be pressed. Most of them are pretty simple if you know how they are supposed to work, but if the last time you set up was a year ago, you may not remember how it works.

Friday was also a clear sunny day. I thought this view of the Court House with the sun behind the peak of the tower was interesting. The court house has a halo--but doesn't that violate the separation of church and state?

On Saturday morning we awoke to light rain and mist. The first event of the day, the Little Cousin Jasper 5K, was actually helped by that weather. It is more pleasant to run in light rain than in heat and humidity. The runner finishing below was quite excited to finish even though she was several minutes behind the leaders.

Meanwhile, none of the booths had opened.

The attendance in the morning was very light. There were some little kids who got there for the tractor pull, but down the street the girl's soccer team was having a hard time finding anyone to kick a soccer ball through their obstacle course. They were offering candy to anyone who would join them even that did not help much.

While I was watching them I suddenly thought I had entered a time warp as six or seven old automobiles came down Washington Street and turned onto Cullen. I did not see them again and have no clue as to where they were headed.

Attendance picked up in the afternoon after the parade. One reason was that there was free entertainment. The NERD band was the first group on the main stage.

An hour later the New Vision Band played the second stage, the gazebo.

Later in the afternoon what I expected to be the highlight of the day, the Rensselaer Has Talent competition, took place. I was disappointed because I thought the level of talent was lower this year than it was last year. However, there was at least one bright spot during the event--the sun finally came out.

My disappointment with the Rensselaer Has Talent competition was offset with my enjoyment of the Pizza Eating competition sponsored by Slice of Pie Pizza. The competition had four age groups. three for students and one for adults (anyone out of high school). Although quite a few people had signed up for a drawing to be a contestant, some of the names drawn did not show. Hence, members of the audience were invited to compete so that there would be six contestants in each age group. As you can see, there were plenty of spectators watching the contestants sit with an unopened box of pizza in front of them.

The rules of the contest were simple. When the starter said, "Gentlemen, start your eating," the eating commenced and the first one to finish the pizza was the winner. The first group to crown a winner was the freshman-sophomore group. They are shown below. The young man in the brown shirt won, but it was a close contest.

The next group with a winner was the middle school group, and then the adult group, shown below.

I left before anyone in the the junior-senior group finished, but not before I saw one of the contestants from another group wandering around holding his stomach with a look of pain on his face. (Where were the girls? They had a chance to enter this, and yet there were none there. Maybe they want their own group. Just a thought for next year if the contest is repeated.)

Meanwhile the Iroquois Valley Harmonizers had begun their set in the gazebo to a much smaller audience. Maybe it got a lot bigger when the crowd for the eating contest looked for something else to do.

More later.