St. Rocco's Festival

St. Rocco

If you like to go to festivals, the Rochester area is the place to be. This weekend, Laurie, Pat, Liz, J, and I made the journey out to the St. Rocco's Festival near Holley, NY. There we bumped into friends and family of Pat's. You may not have heard of St. Rocco -- I hadn't. St. Rocco is invoked against cholera, epidemics, knee problems, plague, skin diseases. He is the Patron Saint of bachelors, diseased cattle, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, Istanbul, surgeons, tile-makers, gravediggers, second-hand dealers, pilgrims and apothecaries. He is typically shown displaying the plague sore on his leg, and with a dog who has a loaf of bread in his mouth.That's because when St. Rocco was stricken ill with plague (which he contracted while nursing the sick), he withdrew to the forest where he lived in a hut. A dog miraculously appeared and fed him bread, and healed him by licking the Saint's wounds. Personally, I think that the dog is the saint in the story, but that's just me.

Fried Dough

The number one attraction for us was the food: shells, meatball subs, eggplant parmigiana, pizza, Italian sausage, hots, french fries and fried dough were offered. I had shells and eggplant. My egg plant was wonderful. That's a dish that is generally too much work for me to want to make it at home, so it is great to get it out. The fried dough was the clear winner, and I went back for seconds!

Liz knows when to quit!

Besides the food, there were games of chance, of course. At this festival, they offered both roulette, and the pull-open tickets. Lizzie hasn't met a game of chance that she doesn't love, I think, and she made quite a killing on the roulette wheel. She wasn't saying how much she actually won, but I think the roulette wheelman's expression in this picture says it all, don't you????

Boccie Ball

We didn't play in the boccie ball tournament -- but only because we didn't know about it in advance. St. Rocco's sports five "permanent" boccie ball lanes, and the tournament was in full steam while we were there. Maybe next year, eh, G's????? I didn't see any female teams -- I think we should shake things up a bit, don't you???

"These little town blues...."

Produce for sale

St. Rocco's also had a "DJ" and he was spinning an eclectic mix that included tunes like "Achey Breaky Heart" and "Twist and Shout". When the G's heard "New York, New York" -- obligatory at any celebration held in the Empire State -- they couldn't hold back. The festival season isn't over yet -- we still have the Clothesline Festival next week -- but it is definitely winding down. Soon it will be winter again and we will all be holed up in our nests, looking forward to Super Bowl weekend. But for now, it's still summer  (at least until the 21st!) and we are having fun!