I went to the Allied Drive “Move Forward, Not Out” festival last Saturday. I have to say, it was an exercise in “unfriendly” before we were all sent home due to the tornado warnings.
The first thing I encountered as I was setting up is that I was talking to my table-mate and he said that there were no restrooms available? At first, I didn’t believe him. I asked someone “in the know” about it and I was told that the Boys and Girls Club had locked their doors and refused to open and let people use the restrooms there. Nice.
Then, before I was even set up, I heard someone yelling my name. So, I asked them what was up. I was told “you need to move your car.” This was familiar to me, last year when I went there, I pulled up and was unloading my car and “the nasty Fitchburg lady” came out and was yelling at me “Brenda Konkel you need to move your car!”, so I didn’t think I made that same mistake, in fact I was extra careful to avoid that situaion. I parked at the end of the block and walked my tabling materials over to avoid another incident of yelling.
So, I was confused about being asked to move and I asked why. He told me “I don’t know, the police said you have to move it.” I said, “I’m not parked illegally, there’s no signs. I double checked!” The person very firmly said, “It’s Fitchburg, just move it.” and smiled at me. He had a good point and I didn’t want to cause the neighborhood any trouble. So, half set-up I went to go move my car. On my way, I ran into two police officers . . . so . . . I just had to ask. “Why do I have to move my car?” The police officer looked at me, hesitated, smiled wryly and said “Well, you don’t have to, but it would be nice.” Ahhhhhhhh . . . .
Now, I’m not sure if my rust bucket was offensive to the homeowner or if she really was worried that I was parked too close to, but not in front of, her mailbox. I moved my car. However, I have to say, that the first 15 minutes of the festival, both last year and this year, really kind of pissed me off. Way to take a positive event and make it negative. That’s not very neighborly!
