Pittsfield’s Egg Festival thrills new, native town residents

PITTSFIELD – Michele and Jeff Goldman, along with their three children, moved last winter from Baltimore, Md., to a stately home at the edge of Manson Park in Pittsfield.

They watched the snow as it deepened and blanketed the beautiful park and froze the edges of the Sebasticook River. They watched the spring warmth and rains come and spill the river over its banks into the soccer fields, while the buds ripened on the trees.

As summer neared, their afternoons were filled with the sounds of lively baseball and softball games in the park.

They enjoyed their view of the park so much that they renovated to add two large bay windows overlooking the acreage.

But this week, the Goldmans were in for quite an adventure. The 33rd annual Central Maine Egg Festival came calling and suddenly their “backyard” park was filled with flying octopus rides, country bands belting out tunes, a carousel and whizzing tea cups.

Not to mention the 10,000 people who showed up Saturday night for the fireworks.

“Oh, my goodness, this has been quite a week,” Michele Goldman said Saturday afternoon. After all, how many people can say they had two parades, a street dance, a petting zoo, and the Egg-lympics march right by their bedroom window this week?

But by nightfall, Goldman had rallied, serving dips and chips and cold drinks to a group of new friends who had arrived to watch the fireworks.

“This is the best time ever,” she said.

On Sunday, she was a bit more reflective. “I fell in love with Pittsfield Saturday,” she admitted. “There was such an overwhelming blanket of community.”

Goldman said that during the week before the festival, she watched as bit by bit of the carnival arrived. “First there were the tea cups and then the other rides, and before you knew it, we could see the Ferris wheel.”

She watched as the blue and white striped tents went up and the cotton candy and fried dough vendors arrived.

“And then, it seemed suddenly, it was there. It was absolutely amazing.”

“I didn’t even mind the teenagers carousing in the wee hours of the morning because they sounded so happy,” she said.

Coming from a large city like Baltimore, Goldman said she was particularly struck with how the town pulled together. “The entire community emptied from their homes to watch this,” she said. “I’m not used to so many people caring.”

By everyone’s accounting Saturday night, the 33rd annual Central Maine Egg Festival had been a record-breaking event.

Festival President Sherry Davis said there was more of just about everything this year: more kids at the Egg-lympics, double the crowd at the annual street dance, more participants in the quiche and cheesecake contest, a third more crafters in the craft tent than in years past, and the largest Saturday crowd for fireworks in several years.

“It is wonderful,” Davis said Saturday afternoon, just starting to wilt from a year’s worth of planning and a week’s worth of execution.

No one will know for several weeks just how much money the festival raised – each year’s profits are supposed to go towards the next year’s fireworks – because of the way the festival is set up.

Each vendor must be a nonprofit entity and the festival takes 40 percent of the vendors’ profits. A final accounting won’t be ready for a while, said Davis.

But, she said, her strategy over the past several years of trying to include communities outside of Pittsfield by moving events to other locations has apparently paid off.

“This is the most people I’ve seen down here in several years,” she said, although she admitted that the superb weather for most of the week played a key role. Saturday was sunny and breezy with not a shower or sprinkle in sight.

Bob and Robin Slominski of Windsor Locks, Conn., were attending their first Egg Festival on Saturday.

“I am really impressed,” said Robin Slominski. “My town is three times the size in population and you have three times the carnival and entertainment that we do at our annual fair. This is really, really nice.”