Once a year, at the end of July, comes the event that I dread, the event that townies anticipate will be the best time of their life, better than the day they got married or the birth of their first child... The Hilton Carnival.
The carnival officially starts on Wednesday and ends on Saturday, but the hype for the event starts long before. Lawn chairs line the streets five days prior to the kick off of the Fireman's Parade, which usually consists of an array of fire trucks from all of the neighboring towns. If you're lucky, you'll get to see the color guard march down Main Street in their spandex leotard, the majority of them being smack dab in the middle of the gawky stage in life when most girls should be wearing a bra but are embarrassed to ask mom to buy them one, they haven't quite shed that baby fat and family fails to mention to them that eyebrow waxing is mandatory and thick, unruly eyebrows that resemble that of Eugene Levy from the American Pie movies are never attractive... EVER. I think of them as dance class/cheerleading rejects.
The bar in town is deserted, because all the alcoholic regulars have relocated to the beer tent for the week, I'm pretty sure some of them sleep there. The beer tent, known as the Hilton Zoo, is essentially our high school reunion. It's the one time each year when girls and their baby daddies come out of the woodwork to put on the happy family face. I swear the Village of Hilton is secretly a baby factory. When you run into someone you haven't seen since the previous year's carnival, most likely they'll share that they have had yet another child, and one in the oven. For those that have not seen me in the two years since I've been married will ask "what have you been up to"? When I share that I'm married and living in the city they interrupt with "Who'd ya marry". Rule of thumb is that those from Hilton MUST marry one another, I think it's written in the Village Code Book at the Town Hall. I obviously am not a rule follower; you could call me a rebel. I live in the "big bad city" 20 minutes away, married a man from another zip code and did not have a child out of wedlock. I should be shunned.
TO BE CONTINUED...
