Surry with the Fringe on Top

Today was bright and beautiful so Hubby and I snatched up Mammaw Speck and took a little road trip to the Jonquil Festival. One newspaper columnist snarked that it should be renamed the "Jonquil and Studded Snow Tire Festival" because you never know what the weather will be. Last weekend it snowed out the Daffodil Festival (daffodil - jonquil, same difference).

Hubby and I have gone to the Jonquil Festival almost every year for the past 25 years. It's the first outdoor festival of the season and all of southwest Arkansas comes out to shake off the cabin fever blues. We see tons of folks we know and it's like Old Home Week. We spent most of the day visiting with people instead of looking at the flowers and crafts. We went through the grounds about 25 feet at a time because that's how often we encountered someone else to visit with.

We had to stop and get a huge bag of homemade pork rinds because it just wouldn't be a Jonquil Festival without them. How can one enjoy an outdoor festival without an extra-huge bag of artery clogging cholesterol???

Just past the pork rind stand were two horse-drawn carriages giving rides.





I always wanted to ride in a "Surry with the Fringe on Top." Yes, I was having a Rodgers and Hammerstein moment.

The lyrics to the song are:

"Would y' say the fringe was made of silk?
Wouldn't have no other kind but silk.
Has it really got a team of snow-white horses?
One's like snow - the other's more like milk."

Well this is Arkansaw, not Oklahoma, so the fringe was polyester and the snow-white horses???....


...Mules!

I think mules are cool.

I thought it would have been more fun to ride behind the mules just so I could say I had done so, but luck of the draw landed us behind the horsies. The mules are sisters by the way. Of all the things I saw and heard this day, the only thing I can recall is that the mules were sisters. I'm weird that way.

Hubby, Mammaw and I climbed aboard and away we went. It was fun seeing all the folks from way up in the surry. The clop, clop, clop of the horses' hooves on the pavement were comforting and timeless. The sound connected me with my southern Arkansas roots somehow. After a few minutes the romance wore off rather quickly. Those carriage thingies have an awfully rough ride. I don't think I would want to load up in one for a long trip. They beat you to death. I was ready to get off when the ride ended.

But the mules were cool.