Town Crier Articles

 

On a recent Saturday afternoon, under a bright fall sky and mild temperatures, peals of laughter rang out across the Village Walk green, as a large crowd of New Town residents joined in the fun of an old-fashioned Fall Festival. Families with children, young adults and seniors wandered across the green, which was decorated by scare crows, ghosts, and pumpkins. They munched on popcorn, cookies, and apples and drank cider as they enjoyed a wide array of games and races, an obstacle course, pumpkin painting, and New Town’s version of a cake walk. Residents mingled and met neighbors, and parents enjoyed watching their kids burn off energy and have fun playing traditional games, often joining in themselves. 

 

At one location, children and the audience watching them loved the game, Pie Face Showdown, during which two kids competed at pounding a button to see who could be the first to get a lever attached to a hand to toss whipped cream on their opponent’s face. The “victim” often gratefully licked the whipped cream off their cheeks and begged to try again. The three sets of the New Town version of  the traditional cake walk were also a crowd favorite. Adults and children competed in the cake walk to win a giant cookie cake by walking to music in a large circle around fourteen numbered signs decorated with images of fall and Halloween. When the music stopped everyone scrambled for a number, with our smaller residents aided sometimes by volunteer Virginia Barch. Resident Rick Byrnes, who provided music for the event, called out a number picked from a hat, and the person who was at that number left the circle but was rewarded with a cupcake and a round of applause from the crowd.  Round and round New Towners marched to the music, starting and stopping fourteen times before the winner, the last contestant in the circle, won the cookie cake.  

 

 

Adults played cornhole and croquet, while children ran from game to game, collecting candy at each attempt at ring toss, bean bag toss, splash toss, shark toss and Halloween bucket toss. Kids and even several moms took on the obstacle course, which involved crawling through two tunnels, moving across a line of boxes without touching the grass and stretching themselves doing the limbo by bending backwards under a pole held by volunteer Eden Glenn. Little ones enjoyed  building and knocking down houses constructed with cardboard bricks and kids and even some grownups giggled as they raced each other in old-fashioned flour sacks and in a competition requiring pushing a ball with a broom into a bucket. Finally pumpkin painting appealed to residents of all ages. The fifteen volunteers, including members of the Activities Committee, who made the event possible, also had a fun afternoon. Volunteer Vicki Mahr shared with the  event organizers “some unsolicited feedback from Cora (8 yrs) – ace frisbee thrower! . . . “This is so much fun, I’m really glad we came!’”