The Sock's Adventure

Today being world wide Knit In Public day, conveniently coinciding with my community's 15th annual Thunder on Water Safe Boating Week festival, I decided the sock need to go on a little adventure. The sock and I took lots of pictures, so if you're on dial-up, you have my deepest sympathy.

The sock and I decided to get an early start, hoping to get out and about before it got too hot, so we hit the lake around 9 AM. I had been kind of worried about the weather, since we had some pretty severe thunderstorms last night, but today's




was absolutely beautiful, with no hint of rain.

One of the big things in our small town festival is arts and craft vendors. Some of it is mass market stuff, but a lot of people make their own things.


This lady told me she'd tried to knit and it was too hard. I told her it just takes practice. She agreed to hold the sock, even though she had--dare I say it?-crocheted items for sale.

This guy, along with his wife, makes these beautiful pictures from wood. He wasn't quite sure what to do with the sock when I asked him to hold it. "Trust me," I said, so he did.

On the other hand, this lady knew exactly what to do, and pretended she was knitting the sock herself! "I used to knit," she said. "Then I crocheted and now I do shelves." "I used to crochet," I replied. "Then I did shelves, and now I knit." Small world.

The sock really liked this fish and begged me to buy it, but it was a bit out of my budget. I always asked permission before taking pictures--especially of handmade things. The man who made this fish said that some people would get uptight about that. He said that many people would think you want to take the picture so you could copy his work. "However," he explained, "there is so much of an individual that goes into each piece of pottery that two people could make the same piece following the same pattern, and they will turn out totally different." Well said, Sir.

The sock really liked this cute bee bag,

the handmade checkbook covers,

and these cute little puppy dog clogs. They didn't have any in the sock's size, though. These only came in kid sizes, and the sock will be a men's size 11.

This Army Corps of Engineers ranger was giving water safety tips to the kids. They would spin the wheel, then he would ask a water safety question according to what number the wheel landed on. He was the only person who really asked about the sock. When I explained to him who the sock was, where he was going, and why he was at the festival today, he said, "That is great," but methinks I saw a tear glistening in his eye...Must have been the sun.

The sock saw the midway, even though it wasn't open yet.

Festival or no, there were still people fishing in the spillway.

The guy with the chimpanzee caused quite a spectacle.

But the sock was really disappointed in the venomous reptiles display. It was nothing like the write up in the local newspaper led the sock to believe. The write up talked about rare species and bi-cephalic snakes, but all he really had were a few sickly looking juvenile snakes and a couple of lizards. All of them looked poor, and weren't kept in the best of conditions. Maybe that's why they were all juvenile. Maybe this guy can't keep them alive long enough to grow up.

After looking at this Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, the sock nervously asked me if there were venomous snakes in Iraq. "I don't know," I replied, "I expect so, but don't you worry. Your soldier will take good care of you."

The sock and I walked down to the car and truck show, something I had never gone to. They had all kinds of vehicles there, but the sock was most impressed with the ones that looked antique. I don't know what this is, but the sock liked it because red really goes well with black.

The owner of this blue truck was talking about how somebody had recently hit him and it just made him sick. The sock cleverly arranged itself so that it covered up the huge scrape in the left front finder.

The sock was duly impressed by this race car, and the funny looking yellow car in the background.

Finally, we had seen just about all we could see and were ready to head home. "Remember this day," I told the sock. "When things are getting kind of rough, and you're ready to give up, remember this day. This is what you are fighting for:

small town festivals,

and bead societies.

For old men standing around jawing,

and babies getting their faces painted.


for this little boy,


and that guy fishing. Remember them. Remember their faces. It will give you the strength to go on."

Afterward, I took the sock to the old Civil War redoubt. Here, soldiers also fought and died for their rights.

I knitted a few rounds there. There in the old battleground. It was kind of an odd thing, knitting for soldiers of today in a place soldiers of yesterday also wore hand knit socks. Odd, but very moving.

And while I was there, the ghosts of those long dead soldiers came to me and said, "Thank you."

"Thank you for not forgetting us."

*