DRESDEN — At the end of the egg toss, the evidence of throws gone bad and over-enthusiastic catches was on shirts, on pants and on the grass in front of the Pownalborough Court House.
“They did a study in England,” Peter Walsh said. “You can drop an egg on the grass from 400 feet up and it doesn’t break.”
That explains why some eggs survived their wild tosses across ever-widening distances at Sunday’s Dresden SummmerFest to be tossed again and again.
For a stretch of 15 minutes or so, the egg toss brought together the young and the older, the shy and the competitive, and the reluctant and the enthusiastic for the ageless contest.
Along with games and foot races, both individual and three-legged, the day featured music from Bowdoinham’s Steamboat Gypsy string band, tours of the Pownalborough Court House Museum, horse-drawn wagon rides by Hideaway Farms, a pie contest, lunch cooked by the Dresden Fire Department, visits by raptors in the care of Wind over Wings, and demonstrations of Abenaki dances and drumming.
Between performing his duties as emcee, Walsh said the key to a successful SummerFest is not overplanning.
“We don’t really have a committee,” he said. “People just do things. (They) don’t really like committee meetings.”
The result is an opportunity for neighbors and visitors to meet, spend the day catching up and support organizations like the fire department, which produced grilled fare for lunch.
Pat Theriault did multiple duties. She’s one of the organizers along with Walsh, and she led tours through the historic court house, doling out the details of building and the people who lived there after the it was converted from a court house into a private residence that housed the families of two brothers side by side.
Theriault also doled out samples of pie at the pie contest. Judging and donations were the responsibility of attendees, Anyone who wanted could sample the four pies and register votes for their favorite, and while voting, make a donation to the Richmond Food Pantry.
Theriault said the contest can raise $150-$160 for the food pantry.
“We have a lot of people who use the food bank. It helps a lot of people who need help. You never know when you might need it yourself,” she said.
Theriault cut samples from the strawberry pie, the four-berry pie, and the two lemon meringue pies donated for the cause. She wouldn’t say which was hers because voting was still ongoing.
The winner, she said, gains bragging rights for the year, as she did the year she won.
“If my husband didn’t like what I made for dinner, I could always tell him, ‘Get out of the kitchen, I am an award-winning chef,'” she said.
She’ll get those bragging rights again, as her fresh strawberry pie, with a dollop of Cool Whip won the day, and the food bank will get $92.
Dave Probert, belongs to the stewardship committee for the courthouse and is on the board of trustees for the Lincoln County Historical Association, which owns the property. He sat behind a table of bowls and other items he made to sell to raise money for the courthouse.
“It’s a very good way to get neighbors to meet,” he said.
It also promotes tourism for the court house, which is owned by the historical association, and the court house, he said, needs all the donations it can get.
The event is also an opportunity to celebrate the honorees for Dresden’s Spirit of America award. This year it goes to retired teacher Gary Getchell and to the Dresden Fire Department.
Walsh said he can’t remember whether SummerFest has been going on for 18 or 19 years, and at some level, that doesn’t matter.
“It’s tradition,” Walsh said, as the children raced away from him around the back of the court house.
“It’s for the kids. They will remember this as long as they are alive,” he said. “When I was a little kid, we would go to an event like this and I never forgot it.”
Jessica Lowell — 621-5632
Twitter: @JLowellKJ
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