Fall festival a place to make memories

FOUNTAIN - In a brief lull between the marching high school bands and junior ROTC cadets, the floats and more than 60 horses, Henry Kelm, 2, wobbled toward a burnt patch of weeds beside the Fountain sidewalk.

“Hey, Henry,” called his dad Rob, 29. “Watcha doing? The parade is over here.”

This is the third year the Kelms have staked out a place on a curb during the Fountain Fall Festival, now in its 41st year. This year, 66 organizations hit Santa Fe Avenue and in Metcalf Park, about 70 booths, plus food and music awaited anyone willing to brave the parking.

As husband Rob, picked up Henry for a better view, Kira Kelm, 24, smiled.

“I was pregnant the first time,” said Kira Kelm, “and I puked behind that liquor store over there.”

She laughed.

For the hundreds who turned out here Monday the Fountain Fall Festival offered a cheap treat for children and families on a beautiful day. And, it’s about making memories that last until it’s your turn to narrate a parade for a distracted son.

“I like to be out and this is free,” said Kira, an Army wife who held her 4-month-old daughter Lilly. The family moved to Fountain in 2007. “When I was little they’d have Mexican horses dance down the street. It was so amazing because they followed the same steps.

“And of course, (I loved) the candy when I was little.”

Across the street, Quinton Staples, 16, dragged an open cooler tied to a red wagon down the street. He stopped, now and then, to dole out a soda or a bottle of water. He loves the parade, he said, but not the fight he was having with his wagon.

So why do it then?

“I’m helping my grandmother,” said Staples. “Getting money to pay her bills.”

A man on the sidelines pointed out that Staples’ front wheel is rubbing on the red body. “But it looks better that way,” the man said, laughing. “It makes me feel sorry for you.”

By noon, the parade was nearly over, the participants filing out by the railroad tracks on the other side of town. Across the road, Jim Newell, 63, hitched a horse trailer to the back of his truck. He’d already navigated his Cinderella carriage, which held Grand Marshalls Raymond and Mary Degroot, onto another trailer.

Newell is a retired cowboy, he said, and has been involved with the festival off and on for about 25 years. This is what he does now: He drives carriages, stagecoaches, 10 buggies and the like for events.

He ticks off the people he’s driven and the antique vehicles that carried them as if they were red carpet-worthy celebrities.

“A favorite memory?” Newell asked. “One was when I took Glen Elmer in the stagecoach. He was a real good friend and rancher. He baled hay and did just about everything.”

Elmer’s been dead five or six years now. Newell doesn’t remember exactly. “You know,” he said, “he was just a good guy.”