SJC Homecoming and Oktoberfest

Over the weekend the Saint Joseph's College Alumni Association held the first SJC homecoming since the College closed. It did not have a football game but it did have alumni, brats, and beer.

The event was held in Brookside Park. As I approached I was impressed that the cars were backed up onto Jackson Street. When I got there I saw that there was an unrelated soccer game on the field and a motor cycle group in another shelter, so without those events there would not have been nearly as many cars.

 Reinforcements Design was selling T-shirts.

 There was a bouncy house for the kids.

 I met a couple of my former students. It seemed that the people were having a good time.

The Alumni association is planning for its next big event, a Little 500 that will be held at the Jasper County Fairgrounds. Alumni will be able to bring a camper and spent the night in the Alumni Village. The association also provided a link the a new SJC on-line archive that Sheila Maxwell has spent many hours preparing. See here.

The other big event for the weekend was Oktoberfest. The ideal weather and the presence of the SJC alumni helped give this year's Fest the largest attendance ever.

 As in the past, there were two bands, a German band to open the event and another band for the night crowd.

Cleanup from both events was rapid. By the next morning most of the garbage was gone. The tables were off the street Sunday morning and gone early Monday.

 I notice that one of the shelters at Brookside Park was getting a border. This shelter will be the main shelter for the Vietnam Wall exhibit coming in May.

Oktoberfest celebrates the harvest, and when I drove north on Thursday, I noticed a few fields that had been harvested and two or three that had combines working them. I expected the trees to have more color as October begins. There are leaves falling, but they are not turning yellow, gold, and red before they fall.

This is a good week to go into City Hall and pay your utility bill. They utility office is celebrating Public Power Week with cookies and candy.

 The lot that once held the Fendig Drug store before the building burned was paved last week. This picture, taken Sunday, is already out of date. The lot has been painted with lines and every parking space has the word "Reserved" on it. It is not a public lot.

I noticed some other paving. The back of the College Mall was recently paved and the front had a seal coat applied. Jasper Junction was getting new asphalt last week.

WIC is in its new offices between the Lafayette Bank and DeMotte Carpet. Workers were making holes in the highways at the SR 114 and US 231 intersection, installing sensors. The point, I guess, is to reduce the time a car has to sit at a light when the road is empty.