A Murder in Mayberry

Part 4/2) Autumn Leaves

The Autumn Leaves Festival is held the second weekend of October and features old timey music, crafts, and food "your granny used to make". For lodging and event information visit our website at therealmayberry.com.     From the official Autumn Leaves website.

Magdalena was in a world of hurt. She was worried sick about her mama and her finances and lack of, and she was being tormented by a group of girls at school. She was not the only girl in love with Ren and, even though she and I decided hands off, it was obvious that Ren made no such decision. The other girls were jealous of the three-way friendship that we shared with Ren, and jealousy makes a mean girl meaner.

Magdalena's ninth grade torment started off quietly enough with long stares and conversations and giggles. By October, it escalated to taunts aimed at her father that included: Mafia Girl, Killer Mags, Murdering Maggie, Snitch Bitch (because it rhymed?), and Serial Ho, that in a play of words morphed into Cheerio Ho said with a British accent. Girls can be mean. While most teenage movies with a school bully have a ring-leader, this version did not. Basically, a core group of about seven green-eyed monster girls were persecuting Magdalena, and if I was around, I was getting it too. Daisy Dog from middle school days was resurrected, and I was hearing barks as I walked down the halls of the school.

Magdalena needed cheering up and it was a beautiful fall day so Ren and I decided to go with Magdalena to the Autumn Leaves Festival. Ren didn't have his car that day. His daddy was mad at him and took it, so we walked uptown. It was a fine day for a walk. It was one of those fall days where temperatures have dropped just enough, there's a crispness to the air, and it is just good to be alive. A fall day that has its opposite, and yet can evoke an equivalent reaction, in a spring day when it has finally warmed up.

The Autumn Leaves Festival is held annually on the second weekend of October in Mount Airy. Their website touts the festival as a testament to traditional music and food and crafts, but local school kids celebrate it for its most powerful attribute - a day off from school. Because downtown streets are blocked off beginning Thursday night and students work booths selling hot dogs for the band and ground steak sandwiches for the church youth group, school closes on Friday of the weekend festival. This gives teenagers a reason to roam the streets and hang out and see who they see and be seen. It's a reason to escape school and your parents and your home and whatever else is bothering you and just be young.

Autumn Leaves Festival weather ranges from hot, shorty short shorts and flip-flop weather to cold jacket or rainy umbrella, miserable weather. This year's weather was the perfect Autumn Leaves weather. It was just cool enough to put the baby in a bonnet and long dress and outfit junior in a plaid shirt, overalls and cowboy boots - traditional wear for the festival. Autumn Leaves was for promenading like the old days and showing your babies off to friends you had not seen since high school. Or, in the case of teenagers, for showing yourself off while looking like you didn't spend an hour on your hair and could give a damn what anyone thought about you the whole time. Wear for teenagers was a little less traditional than overalls, though some were wearing the plaid and camo necessary for the redneck, don't give a shit, gonna kick some ass look. For outsiders who think the festival is just a little bit of a culture shock, you need to take a Labor Day trip to the nearby Hillsville Flea Market and Gun Show where men tromp up and down the sidewalks with a shotgun over their shoulder and a pistol stuck down in their pants like the wild west days. Now that is culture shock.

Ren and and Magdalena and I were strolling. We were looking at crafts, though not really looking. Looking that involved, touching the wares, and checking the prices, and saying thing like, "I could make this," though you know you never would. We wanted to buy something to eat, but there were so many choices and so many delicious smells that we could not decide. Ground steak sandwiches topped with homemade slaw made by a church group. Hamburgers and hot dogs with toasted buns made by Boy Scouts. Fried, dried apple pies home made, as the Jaycee said when questioned by a tourist, by somebody's grandma. Pizza Hut baby pepperoni pizzas. Something called collard green sandwiches on cornbread that Ren said sounded disgusting, until I pointed out the long line. Funnel cakes and homemade ice cream or apple butter made in something that looked like an ol' timey moonshine still. Putt-putt-putt. Putt-putt-putt, the machine kept making this sound as it turned. If you've ever heard it, you can hear it now. Past the apple butter, you could get a bowl of pintos with all the fixings - onions, cornbread, or ketchup or chow chow or mayonnaise. Magdalena said the pintos sounded like something she could have at home any night of the week.