Fall for Downtown Cumberland Festival 2019

The stringy, lively sound of bluegrass fills the crisp autumn air. People tap their feet, clap their hands, and they sing along. While this festival hasn’t been around for long, the Fall for Downtown Cumberland Festival has now been deemed an annual event and will take place every year.

The locals flood downtown to visit the tables of vendors, meet with old friends, and just to simply get out of the house. There’s something special about community festivals. The individual journey to the event becomes a moment of social gathering and coming together. You see friends, neighbors, coworkers. You are no longer staring at the television or your phone screen. You are fully immersed in the culture of your hometown.

This festival ignites the quiet streets of Historic Cumberland as people begin to arrive. There’s a raffle, a chili cook-off, and even a bearded beauty pageant. The cook-off is a competition between seven restaurants in the area. Festival-goers can taste-test each one and vote for their favorite chili and their favorite cornbread. The winner of the contest receives “The Golden Ladle.”

As people walk around trying chili, there is a live bluegrass band playing. Many people gather around the stage to dance, listen, and enjoy. The music is what brings the festival to life. The sweet, twangy notes pick at the air and instill happiness in each individual. The feeling is so strong, everyone can feel its mutuality. The mutual feeling sparks conversation between everyone. This puts a weird sense of bravery in your heart. You start to see familiarity in the faces of the strangers around you. Conversations flow and nothing feels forced; just happy. Have you known these people for two minutes or two years?

As the social awkwardness gets lost in the sound of the music, the liveliness in the streets only gets brighter. The sun fades, but the fun begins, starting with the crowning of this year’s Golden Ladle winner. Everyone erupts into an anxious chatter. “Who did you vote for?” “Who was your favorite?” The sense of community is strong, but do the citizens share the same taste buds? The music stops, and the buzzing chit chat comes to a halt: it’s time. Everyone leans a little closer as The Manhattan Social takes this year’s prize.

Following that announcement, a new contest begins. This one, more absurd. Waiters from the different restaurants are competing against each other to purchase as many items off a list from the surrounding bars and restaurants in a given amount of time. It was very entertaining to see these workers running around the streets in a desperate attempt to buy different food and drink from “competing” restaurants. When they all came together, the Churchill Pub waiters had the most items, so they were each given a “tip” of $50.00 each. It was a fun event and deepened my admiration of waiter’s skills.

After this event, there were more to come, such as the bearded beauty contest that included a “yanker” to test the quality of the beard and another live band. Basically, the fun was not over yet. The crowd came and went throughout the event, but overall, the sense of togetherness stayed.