Historic Fincastle Festival

Saturday was the date of the annual Historic Fincastle Festival, a time when crafters, history interpreters, and others all come together to showcase the town.

It was a little different this year. First, the courthouse is just a pile of rubble, since the county has torn it down to make way for a new one. That's not exactly a picturesque setting.

Second, the weather forecast was dire.

We were getting ready about 10:30 to head to the festival when I realized my glasses had something wrong with them. I picked them up and they broke in half at the weld on the bridge.

After much scrambling through drawers, I found an old pair of glasses that looked close to what I had, and we drove to Roanoke to LensCrafters to see if they could put my lenses in the old frames.

Fortunately, that worked out just fine. Whew.

It was about 2 p.m. when we finally arrived at the festival.

It was dead, or nearly there. Some tents with crafters remained, but we saw others packing up and leaving, even though there were still two hours to go.

Unbeknownst to us, some of the vendors had moved into one of the church's meeting halls, but there were no signs to indicate that, and we never went that far along the route.

It is never good when an event goes sour like this. The Fincastle Festival used to be a very big deal. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I feel sure at least 20,000 people visited the 2-day affair. It was a big money-maker for Historic Fincastle, Inc.

The festival then was so full of people, I could barely squeeze my way through the crowd. Kids ran all over the place and the craft booths overflowed with lookers and buyers.

But times change, and people grow old. The festival took a hiatus for a while in the 2000s, and returned as a smaller version of itself, just a one-day affair.

The weather makes a difference, too. A day like Saturday, when the clouds were dark and brooding, and rain drops splattered the windshield, doesn't exactly make anyone want to be outside.

Here are a few shots of the festival: