Inman Park Festival 2007

I know these posts are suppose to be about the kids, but I'm going to digress and post about my weekend during the Inman Park Festival. The Inman Park Festival is a huge neighborhood celebration originally conceived in 1971 to attract Realtors and investors as the neighborhood was being restored to it's original grandeur. Now it's an event that attracts 40,000+ visitors to the neighborhood for the arts and crafts vendors, parade, tour of homes, music and more. The parade's claim to fame is that it's the wackiest, quirkiest parade in Atlanta, and I believe it! This year, Baton Bob was the Grand Marshall for the parade. Baton Bob is a scantily clad, baton twirling, cross dresser, say no more!

Well, my part was Public Safety co-chair on the Festival committee. That means that I got a walkie-talkie and golf cart on the weekend of the Festival! My responsibilities included helping with the Emergency Medical Services Plan (arranging for EMS personnel to be at the festival), Traffic and Security Plan (approving the plan that is generated by a more qualified person), and lining up parking lots for all the vendors and musicians. Then there's the No Parking signs and fliers to be hung and distributed so the residents are aware of the street closures. That's all done prior to the festival.

Once the festival is here, I was mainly needed to make sure everything ran smoothly. On Friday, the main tent was set up and streets were closed. Friday night was the Butterfly Ball where the neighbors cut loose! It was a blast, and we stayed out way too late. I was suppose to delivery radios at 5am in the morning. Well, getting to bed at 3:30am made it really difficult and impossible to get up at 5am. By 6:30am though, I was handing out radios.

My best memory of Saturday morning was another committee member showing up right after I did in his golf cart, brushing his teeth and getting busy doing festival stuff. Awesome, someone else as hung over (or more!) than I was! So Saturday was very rough. Parade detail really did me in. At 12:30 the parade participants start showing up and I hung out at the check-in point just to over-see the activities. It was hot and no shade. By the time the parade started, my ability to function was severely deteriorating.

I was just about to go back to the house to take a nap (with the walkie-talkie in case I was needed) and an emergency happened! Someone was having a seizure, and the crowds were really impeding the emergency personnel from getting to them. It all turned out okay. But for a while it was really scary. Now that the adrenaline was going, I didn't need that nap anymore.

Another emergency situation that happened during festival was a young boy fell and broke his arm. My golf cart was needed to transport the group to their car. The boy was with friends and not his parents, so his parents were going to meet them at the hospital.

Needless to say, Saturday night was pretty quiet for Bob and me. I was in no condition to do any major partying. Bob was disappointed especially since we were childless for the weekend. Ian and Roxanne had Colin and Nathan while all of this was going on. But Sunday about noon, they came back and headed over to the festival where I was standing my post. When Colin saw me, he immediately focused on the new "phone" that I had (walkie-talkie). He was pretty impressed. My outfit also included a police baseball cap. It wasn't the most flattering on me but when a police officer offers you his hat, you wear it! It was my official uniform for the Public Safety Festival Officer!

Also about the golf cart, when I first got the golf cart, I was not very excited about it. I've never driven a golf cart before and it's a little different than a car! I just didn't understand how it works. However by the end of the weekend, I loved it! I mean, what a cool way to get around the neighborhood! I'm hooked! We took the golf cart to Butterfly Ball Friday night. Now that's going in style!! I'll do Public Safety every year if it means getting a golf cart.

Besides the medical emergencies, there was a house fire on Sunday! Fortunately it was quickly contained but it could've been really bad. It was completely unrelated to Festival activities, but still caused a bit of excitement for us.