The festival season is upon us
Gizzard Fest started it, Festival of the Sun proves it’s really here

By Lamont E. Clegg

Potterville, also known as Gizzard City for its newly renamed Gizzard Fest, kicked off the summer festival season last weekend. A common thread of many events is community.

I have mixed feelings about community festivals. I do enjoy them. It’s just that the first one I ever attended resulted in my having a broken leg and shoulder.

I’ve been wary of them ever since.

You see, when I was 19 years old, I attended June Jubilee in my hometown of Richmond, Va. It was a celebration of art, music, and food … you know, all the things these festivals tend to celebrate. After spending my sophomore year at college, I did the good big brother thing and took my sister and her friend to the downtown festival.

Because festival organizers suggested heavily to ride a special festival bus to avoid traffic jams, we did. When the sky darkened, I decided it would be smart to get on a bus and get back home before it began to pour. Lucky for us, we got on the bus just before the onslaught of rain. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t get any better by the time we got to our stop. I left the sidewalk to get to the median and then signaled to my sister when I felt it was safe for her to cross. Then, while trying to cross from the median to the other side, it happened: I was hit by a Volkswagen Beetle (yes, one of the old ones), resulting in the injuries previously mentioned.

Festivals are gizzard licking and wine drinking good. At least that’s what Greg Klont ( left) and Mike Royster of Charlotte proved as they enjoyed some gizzards at last week’s Gizzard Fest in Potterville.

Try as I may, even after more than 20 years, that day is still fresh in my mind. It is forever a part of my consciousness when I think of community festivals. Fortunately, I have not let that experience stop me from attending local community festivals. And, as many festivals as there are in the Greater Lansing area, that’s a good thing. Without festivals, seemingly occurring weekly, what would I, or thousands of mid-Michiganders, do during the summer?

What can we celebrate during these festivals? Well, depending what your inclinations are, you can celebrate anything from gizzards to music, to wine, to art, to cars, to beer, to music, to heritage, to culture … and music again.

Yes, there is a lot of music. But, what we’re really celebrating is community.

Lamont Clegg/City Pulse

Abby Foltz, 4, of Mulliken takes a ride during Gizzard Fest.

Since moving to Lansing in 1993, I have attended many of these festivals. I have celebrated community at the Red Cedar Jubilee in Williamston; I have celebrated wine and beer at Old Town’s Festival of the Sun; I have celebrated art at the East Lansing Art Festival; I have celebrated music at Michigan Festival, Common Ground, Jazz Fest; and I have celebrated American heritage at the National Folk Festival. And there are many festivals I have yet to attend.

With summer finally upon us, it is again time to get out and enjoy these celebrations of our community. Last week was my first experience driving down to Potterville for the Gizzard Fest. Let me assure you, I had my doubts about that one. I mean, I didn’t know what to expect from a festival that celebrated a chicken’s organ. Particularly when the organ is battered, breaded, fried and eaten. I admit it, the southerner in me comes creeping through when I say I like fried chicken gizzards.

But as anyone in Potterville last week could tell you, the celebration is not really about gizzards. It is about being a community … something that has a special significance this year, especially in Potterville where citizens’ lives were turned up side down last month by a fuel spill. William Saites, who grew up in Potterville but currently lives in Lansing, summed up the importance of the Gizzard Fest well when he said, “It’s like hometown people doing hometown things. It’s people doing things for people. If you want to see small-town America, this is the place to be.”

The wine tent at last year’s Festival of the Sun.

One of my favorite local festivals is still in its youth: Festival of the Sun. Happening this Saturday, the third annual Festival of the Sun invites the community to Lansing’s Old Town to sample wines from around the world and beers from some of Michigan’s best microbreweries. What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon and evening than listening and dancing to good music, nibbling tasty treats from some of the area’s finest restaurants, and sampling (responsibly, of course) good wine and beer?

But, like all of the local festivals, Festival of the Sun is not really about drinking, or dancing, or eating, or music. It is about community … and in this case, building community. The festival serves as a major fund-raiser for Old Town and all of its proceeds go directly back to the community in support of the revitalization of Lansing’s historic commercial district. And it does just that by giving that historic district the chance to host the rest of the city in the spirit of community.

As I sit here and think about what things I’m going to do this summer, I know a lot of what I’ll be doing is celebrating community.

Whether it’s by listening and dancing to music (Common Ground Festival, Lansing Jazz Fest 2002, Mid-Michigan Blues Festival); celebrating our culture and heritage (Dancing by the Riverbank Traditional Pow Wow, Great Lakes Folk Festival, American Heritage Festival, Mexican Independence Day Festival); or participating in any of the festivals found in and around Lansing.

I encourage you to take the time and do the same.