“Come on Kara!” My mom yelled as she rushed me to get out of the car. The whole family poured of the crammed white SUV since we were packed like sardines. As a breeze swept through the fall air and dozens of fallen brown leaves rustled on the cement, it only made me more excited for the 60th Annual Tony Town Fall Festival. For the past 13 years, my two best friends and I have gone since it’s a tradition for all three of our families to go together. My favorite part is always the hay ride at the end of the night. Before we get on, my mom does her coat checking ritual by zipping up all of our jackets but I sometimes unzip mine. Once she saw, she gave me the “don’t-think-I-didn’t-see-that” look which makes me zip it back up faster than the Road Runner. Then we all board the hay ride with one or two scarves hanging loosely with a Coke or Sprite in hand and we sit with no gaps between us so we don’t freeze to death. Then we tell stories while someone passes around another soda. I’ve always found such irony in drinking a cold soda on a cold evening. Everyone goes about telling their favorite memory from previous festivals and mine is always the 10th year of going to the fall festival. Beth’s dad was scared all of the kids would get a cold so he wrapped about four extra scarves around our necks and shoved hot packets in our pockets to the point our hands could barely fit. My sisters’ favorite memory is when the hay ride broke down and the farmer stayed to work on it while the rest of us hiked two and a half miles in the dark with only the lights coming from our phone screens. Since then, we’ve started counting how many years we can go without a mishap. Towards the end of the ride, the moonlight would glisten off the bottles in the open cooler and the only sound is the crunching of leaves beneath the tires. The sound is relaxing and almost silent, but it always manages to bring a joyful smile to everyone’s face because no matter how many mishaps; we’ll always be able to look back and laugh at all the memories.
“Kara! Come on!” My mom called once again and pushed me through the black and rusty gates that towered overhead.