Ka-Bloom - Apple Blossom
Today marks the official beginning of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival weekend. Or, as I’ve learned to know it, the weekend Winchester loses its collective mind in a fever dream of pink, green, and creative life choices.
If you’re not from around here, let me paint you a picture: imagine a quaint, historic town suddenly overrun by marching bands, food trucks, and a staggering amount of brave day-drinking sociopaths in the streets. Multiple parades. That’s right. More than one. It’s a spectacle. It’s an institution. And when you’re young(er), it's a chaotic endurance test you annually participate in willingly.
Apple Blossom is a party marathon for amateur adult degenerates, young adult aspiring degenerates, and teens. You sprint at pace through the festivities fueled by the 20 oz bottles of 50/50 Gatorade/Gin you carry in a drawstring bag. Chucking down the same general flavor of overpriced, deep-fried everything, The invincible ignorance of justice in the face of commerce. Public drunkenness for the greater good. You don’t care about traffic. You don’t care about the weather. You could give a shit about your own safety. The apple trees are bloomin’ and there's a reason to be drunk outdoors.
Suddenly inspired, here’s a little rhyme to summarize Apple Blossom:
Apple Blossom
It’s fuckin’ awesome
Apples start to grow
Let’s fuckin’ go
It makes about as much sense as it reads, but it is, so it be. The last time we attended, we knew in advance we were going to celebrate those apple blossoms HARD. So we opted to book a local hotel. We were Friday night parade party people, where the real alcoholics celebrated fruit trees. This was the “We can’t wait another day for public intoxication crowd.” My people. Technically the Fireman’s Parade, the procession itself is a three hour EMT vehicle siren concluding pre-parade to Saturday’s main event parade. Pa-fuckin-rades galore.
Going hard was the plan. We executed. We succeeded. So much so, we may never go back.
Immediately after the conclusion of every Fireman’s Parade, the city lights the night sky with fireworks. We were en route to an optimal firework viewing area when I drunkenly elected to discreetly relieve myself while in motion. Barring specifics in the interest of time, my technique was indeed discreet. Only Muffin was attuned to it, but since we were self-situated on a train of inebriated chaos, my over-efficiency may have crossed a line of personal lewdness. I dunno. I still think it was brilliant.
When you’re older, the cringe catches you in the act. Keeps you from toeing the edge of irrational decision making well before it enters the mind. It’s truly awful and necessary. Reminding you that you are indeed not invincible, you’re actually lucky to still be alive. Holy fucking shit.
It’s around that time, you stop going. Fuck dem trees, their blooms, and all that fun. All the pink and green bunting suddenly transforms from a symbol of debauchery into a stark, brightly colored warning sign that your pursuit to simply exist in this general tri-state area without Appling-the-fuck-out is about to be ruined. Not just for a day, no. For an entire extended weekend. Horeshit (which you can also see at the parades).
The festival hits entirely differently now. I’ve never done crack. It didn’t really exist where I grew up since the government didn’t need to force it into predominantly white communities in the 70s and 80s (if ya know, ya know). But I imagine my disinterest in Apple Blossom and the general disappointment even just the thought of it would be comparable to a legit crackhead going cold turkey trying to compensate with nicotine patches. You can’t even smoke ‘em. Goodness me.
My joints hurt at the mere thought of just watching the Fireman's parade sober. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of drunks and sticky, sick kids (allergy season is RIPE) fills me with the kind of existential dread usually reserved for outpatient surgical procedures or unexpected texts from the dead. I have officially aged out of the "woohoo" demographic and firmly into the "woof" bracket. I like it here. Not fun, but safe. And yet, despite this, there's a weird, inescapable nostalgia to it all.
As the weekend kicks off today, I can't help but reflect on my past AB experiences with the Muffin. Roaming the streets well marinated, smiling, happy. Strategically pissing on the move.
“Around here we bloom!”
Good luck with that. I’ll be over here boarding up the house. To protect you from us and us from us.
#AppleBlossom #ShenandoahAppleBlossomFestival #Winchester