Today starts the local Festival. It's free to get in and we often go for the food. Gotta be 30 local groups from churches, sports teams, drill teams, scouts, service organizations who have booths that sell tons of homemade food. From pies and meats on a stick to Cajun favorites. And the free music is toe tapping (Cajun mostly) and local talents. We used to be designated parents who roamed the grounds for the first few hours of the night so that the group of kids belonging to us could have adults around. (Other parents of the group did the second half of the night.) We used to buy passes for the kids to ride free all night all week. But now, just us. Last year on Friday night, we roamed by the craft people setting up for the Saturday sale. There was a guy putting out beautifully handcrafted wooden crosses with three long spikes crisscrossed attached to the fronts. With the cross was a story. It went something like this.....

(In religious circles, carrying your cross often means carrying your own burdens)

A man said that his cross was too heavy to carry. He was told that he could take his cross into this room and lay it down. Then he could look at all the other crosses and choose another one. He went in and laid down his cross. After looking at all the other crosses, he quietly picked up his original cross and carried it on.

Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in my own world and problems that I fail to see the burdens carried by my fellow travellers. I hope that I don't do that here. I am trying to change that about myself. Anyway, we pooled our pocket cash and had just enough to buy a cross. I gave it to my mother as a gift. The next day we were there for lunch, browsed through the craft fair; and while most were just getting started, this guy's two long tables were bare. The crosses were all gone. We talked a bit. He was surprised that everything was sold. I wasn't....