It Never Rains But it Pours in Norway, Maine

July 10, 2010 started early for me.  At 5 am I was chugging out of my driveway in my little Honda and driving over the river and through the woods, and up over the top of Streaked Mountain to Norway, Maine for their 43rd annual Art Festival (my first).  The weather reports were sketchy, but not devastating, 30% chance of thundershowers, increasing to 60% chance by evening.   It took me over two hours to unload, set up, and clip additional plastic to the sides of my tent…just in case. We opened at 9 am and at 9:05 with 3 people in my tent a blackness descended and the skies opened up in a deluge of pouring rain.  It was what we always called “pouring buckets”, and the kind of rain that is usually short lived.                Not Saturday.              On and on and on it poured.  Bless the hearty Mainers who ran from tent to tent in raincoats, wearing trash bags, holding plastic bags over their heads, or sporting a cornucopia of unbrellas.  Bless the 3rd person in my tent who turned around and said “I want this original” twenty minutes after I opened.  With that cash in hand, I began to feel that maybe rainy days make the best shopping days, and that I did NOT spend 3 hours driving there and setting up for nothing.  At 10:30 am the organizers of the event went from artist to artist offering the out of packing up by noon and going home.  Scores of artists packed up in the pouring rain and left, and but many more stayed, including my adjacent neighbor, and the couple across the street.   With 4″ deep or more of rainwater streaming through my tent and into the gutters, I resorted to bare feet within an hour, and kept up an exchange of grins and “what can you do?” expressions with my neighbors.  Bless my tent for not leaking. Bless the heat, because if it had been cold rain, I’d have been doomed.  A short break of  “light rain”/”drizzle”/”air that was dripping” occurred in mid afternoon,  and the twenty people on the street maybe doubled to forty, right about when I sold my second original.  By 4 pm it was raining again, and I could hear tent poles popping and cars revving and people stirring, but I had two people in my tent who had been browsing for a long time, and I didn’t want to pressure them into leaving by beginning the packing process.   My reward was yet a THIRD! original being packaged and exiting my tent,  (along with over 200 single cards throughout the afternoon)     Thank you Norwanians….it was a GREAT day.