Dave’s Photo Blog

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt too, and it was only the start of a very long night. Arlington’s Town Day celebration is a big deal and Friday night there is a big party in the field behind the Arlington Boys and Girls Club. They had pony rides, train rides, a dog show, jumping castles, food and music. Unfortunately, it was near impossible to enjoy if you were there alone with two kids. Here, Alex is waiting at the end of this incredibly long line to take a train ride maybe five minutes long. Katherine is behind him waiting patiently, but that didn’t last long…

The coverage in the link above was for Saturday, which is clearly the main event, with Massachusetts Avenue shut down and all kinds of activities. But I didn’t go because I had such a disappointing experience on Friday night. I just wanted to take the kids to some rides and watch the fireworks. But we never got that far because the lines for everything were too long. This is the train ride we waited a good half hour to ride.

After than, I paid a buck apiece for the kids to jump in the jumping castles. But we had to wait in another line for that. This one was deceptively shorter. But it took us almost the same amount of time because they obviously had to put the kids through in timed groups. But the final insult was when we went to get food. I had planned on getting hot dogs for the kids. But as we waited in the food line I learned that there were no more hot dogs. In fact, there wasn’t anything except hamburgers left at that point. There wasn’t even ketchup to put on them.

We tried, we really did. We bought some burgers and went over to the stands to eat. By that time, the field was full of preteen and teenage kids spraying shaving cream everywhere. Neither of my kids found the burgers very appealing. To make a long story short, we were all so frustrated we left. We arrived home around the time the fireworks started. I was pretty worked up about it, so I wrote a letter. I didn’t really know if I’d send it, but since I’ve got the blog up now, I figured I’d post it here.

I’m writing with a request for next year’s Town Day celebration. It’s a huge event and it was obvious that a lot of very dedicated and passionate people worked really hard to make it successful. I thank you all whole-heartedly. Despite the troubles I encountered, I was impressed by the people I saw working the event, from the police, fire and emergency personnel to the Boys and Girls Club staff and countless others. We tried to enjoy the festivities on Friday night, but I’m afraid it was very difficult indeed. My kids and I spent virtually the entire two hours we attended in line. First for the train ride, then for the jumping castles and finally for food. Three activities. Two hours. But the food stand had an additional surprise in store – it ran out of food. The choice of dinner after seven o’clock or so was reduced to a Saturday Night Live sketch – cheeseburgers, chips and pepsi and no condiments. So my request is to please consider the size of the crowds and spend some time planning how to satisfy those crowds in a reasonable amount of time and with the right quantities of food. We don’t mind waiting for things, but we can’t wait a long time for everything. It just doesn’t work that way when you have kids.

Since I was standing in the train ride line for quite some time, I was able to take this shot of one of the Arlington Fire Department Emergency Management Support vehicles. A light truck, in this case. Actually, we used this as our reference point in case anyone got lost. But of course that didn’t happen. Even if it had, Alex would probably not have been able to follow my instructions. But it does make a pretty picture. Too bad I don’t feel the same way about the evening.