A lot of pictures

I have taken a lot of pictures over the past few days, many at the Little Cousin Jasper Parade. The parade's most impressive entry was from the local fire department.  They brought their old horse-drawn wagon from their museum. I do not know if you can see from the picture, but Rensselaer is misspelled on the wagon.

 Immediately following the wagon were firefighters carrying a very large American flag.

With the firefighters marching, they could not be providing noise with their truck sirens. However, plenty of noise was provided by about a half dozen huge tow trucks from D-1.

There were lots of kids whose main interest was the candy that many of the parade entries threw out. Even adults were interested in the bags of donut holes that Main Street Bakery tossed out.

There were quite a few other businesses that had parade entries. I thought the Rensselaer Septic Tanks entry was strange for a parade.

There were no marching bands in this year's parade. The grand marshal was unusual. It was the Court House. Since the Court House could not be in the parade, its place was taken by Couny officials.

Another unusual entry was that from the Bridge Chursh. It featured a person in a seat the rotated around on at least two axes. 

The oldest car was about the same age as the members of the Class of 1956.

A lot of people, most with children, attended the parade.

I did not spend a lot of time at the Festival itself. One of the attractions that caught my attention was this one in which kids were zippered into large balls that floated on a shallow pool of water.

On Sunday there was a demolition derby for kids and I had to see what that was about. The kids had balloons attached to the front of their little cars and the last one with balloons intact was the winner. There were supposed to be three age groups, but very few kids entered so they all ran together.

The Fendig Gallery has a new exhibit that will be in the Carnegie Center until October 1.  It is the Jasper County Art League's Annual Themed Show and this year the theme is "Sounds of Harmony." What would you paint or draw if given that theme? Below are some of the items on display.

The gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon until 4:00 and by appointment.

On Sunday the Memories Alive Cemetery Walk had its dress rehearsal. One of the persons featued this year is Stella Aldrich Zea, whose son Ernest was not only blind but had legs that did not work. Both are buried in unmarked graves in the lot of Henry Aldrich, Stella's father. Ernest Zea lived to be 70 and died in 1952 so older people might remember him. 

Until recently Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson was also in an unmarked grave but a few years ago the Historical Society with support from Jasper County Tourism installed a small marker. Atkinson is listed as one of the famous people from Rensselaer on Wikipedia.

Who do you think the person in this strange costume is portraying? None of his descendants live here, but he left his name on a street.

The program has been printed and is ready for the Saturday performances.

There will be tickets sold at the event, but they will cost more than tickets purchased earlier. Tickets are for sale at Brown's Garden Shop.

Below is the sponsors' page from the program.

The previous post discussed Monday's City Council meeting. Before that meeting, the Rensselaer Board of Public Works met. It approved a promotion to sergeant for one of the police officers and invoices for law work, consulting on land surveying, design work on an upcoming water project, and the final design for a sewer project. The Board approved a schedule for bidding the sewer project, which includes a new lift station. Bids will be due October 25 at 4:00 and they will be opened at a special meeting at 5:00 the same day.