Those of you living in big and sophisticated cities will be astonished to learn that we who live in more-or-less rural areas of America, get all worked up about summer festivals. It may seem sad to you, even pathetic, but it is true.<\/span><\/p>\n So far, this summer, in my neck-of-the-woods, we\u2019ve had the Cherry Festival, the Strawberry Festival, The St. Alphonsus Festival, The St. Joseph\u2019s Festival, The Bratwurst Festival, The Sweet Corn Festival, The Blueberry Festival, and others, many of which I\u2019ve attended, but some I have now forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n But, the Super Bowl of Festivals here in Ohio, happens this very weekend in beautiful downtown Milan, Ohio, where they will spend the entire weekend frolicking and celebrating! And the whole shebang is about melons.<\/span><\/p>\n Before you get all cosmopolitan on me, it’s not MEE-LAN like the Italian town, it’s MY-LAN like the birthplace of Thomas Edison – and I am not kidding.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, folks, it’s Melon Festival time,! Yes indeedy! The biggest festival of all is right around the corner, and the whole area around here is all atwitter with excitement. I bet you never thought folks could get all worked up over melons, did you? But here we are, all worked up! <\/span><\/p>\n Bring on the melons! We’re celebrating melons this weekend in Milan!<\/span><\/p>\n Everywhere I go, I see posters, billboards, and signs (tacked to telephone poles) reminding me that this is the<\/b><\/i> big weekend. The weekend when the sleepy little village of Milan, Ohio (population 1445) comes alive with festivities to rival New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, New York’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Festival and others that I can’t remember.<\/span><\/p>\n Swarms of jet-setters and party animals will descend on Milan this weekend to celebrate melons. They expect that over 100,000 revelers will fill the town square over the weekend \u2013 dancing, partying, and living it up \u2013 all under the watchful eye of the much-celebrated Milan Police Department (MPD) who at other times of the year, oversee the biggest speed trap east of the Mississippi.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s get the melons off our minds for just a minute and discuss this speed trap. Melons are big this weekend (no pun intended), but for the rest of the year, the only two famous things about Milan are that Thomas Alva Edison was born here (and quickly moved away), and the Milan speed trap on U.S. 250. <\/span><\/p>\n It is one of the most efficient speed traps in the nation. Established by the fine men and women of the Milan Police Department it provides much-need revenue for this sleepy little village of mostly rich folks.<\/span><\/p>\n Since Milan has little industry, hardly any people, and thus hardly any tax revenue, the speed trap raises funds that keep the city and its fifty-odd antique shops going until another Melon Festival rolls around.<\/span><\/p>\n But this weekend The Village will be awash in melons and cash from hungry visitors who chow down on sundry (and expensive) festival food \u2013 and park in people’s yards for $20 (and, again, I’m not kidding.)<\/span><\/p>\n By now, I\u2019m almost sure those of you looking for a fun party this Labor Day Weekend, are wondering how you can get to this festival. Well, I\u2019m here to tell you that it\u2019s not hard. If you\u2019re flying in, fly into Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, rent a car, and take I-480 West to the Ohio Turnpike. Take the Ohio Turnpike west to Exit 250 and go south about 3 miles. Don\u2019t worry. You can\u2019t miss the festival. There will be cars parked for miles on both sides of U.S. 250. When you see this line of cars, you\u2019re there. Just be careful you don\u2019t park along U.S. 250. Drive into Milan, and you\u2019ll find many of the gracious villagers will let you park on their front lawns (really!) for a small fee of $15 to $25 (or so).<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re driving in from the east or west, get on the Ohio Turnpike and get off at Exit 250. If you\u2019re coming from the north just act like you\u2019re going to Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio), but instead of going north to the Lake, go south to the Melon Festival. <\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re driving in from the south, good luck.<\/span><\/p>\n Accommodations might be a problem \u2013 and you can\u2019t stay with me so banish that thought from your mind right now! There are no hotels or motels in Milan. They\u2019ve got ordinances against strangers hanging around in Milan especially overnight and no strangers are allowed to hang around at other times of the year unless they visit one of the 50 antique shops.. <\/span><\/p>\n You can\u2019t sleep in the park or the MPD will bust you and you\u2019ll be sleeping in the Milan jail, which, I hear, is worse than many jails in Romania and Nibia.<\/span><\/p>\n Not to worry! \u00a0There are plenty of motels within ten miles. My advice: Stay somewhere south, east, or west of Milan where you can get a room for around a hundred bucks. If you\u2019re thinking of taking in Cedar Point and the Lake Erie Islands while you\u2019re in the area \u2013 forget it. Rooms in and around Sandusky and other lake & bay towns are SOLD OUT and if you can find a room, it will cost you around $500.00 – and again I’m not kidding.\u00a0 If you can afford that much for a room, why not spend it more wisely and send it to me? I could use it at the Melon Festival to buy an ear of sweetcorn, a funnel cake, a buffalo-meat burger, and some melon ice cream. <\/span><\/p>\n The tab for all that would be about $150. I\u2019d also use some of it to try my luck playing some of the festival games. I\u2019ve always wanted a stuffed giraffe for my bed. And a few extra beers wouldn\u2019t be bad either. Don\u2019t worry, I don\u2019t plan on driving until I sober up.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of the games at the Milan Melon Festival: If you have kids or grandkids who\u2019ve never seen a gypsy, bring them to Milan this weekend. (Am I still allowed to say \u201cgypsy\u201d?) The gypsies run the games and they are easy to spot because they all have dew rags on their heads. (And I\u2019m not kidding!) So bring the kiddies and show them a slice of Americana while you enjoy an ice-cold slice of muskmelon.<\/span><\/p>\n By now, you\u2019re probably wringing your hands in anticipation and wanting me to tell you what you can expect when you arrive at the Melon Melon Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s almost too exciting to write. But I\u2019ll try.<\/span><\/p>\n First of all, my favorite part of the Melon Festival (aside from all the gorgeous melons) is the beer tent. I\u2019m a guy. And guys have a thing about beer tents. I\u2019ve noticed lately though, a lot more ladies are hanging around in the beer tent (some wearing dew rags even!). And some of them aren\u2019t bad \u2014 there are not a lot of good-looking women in Milan most of the year, but there are plenty at the Melon Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n Each year it seems that more and more ladies like the beer tent. And while I\u2019d like to believe that this has something to do with me being there, I\u2019m sure it does not. I think the ladies are there because all the guys hang out there. I don\u2019t think it has anything to do with me \u2013 even though I\u2019m a guy, I\u2019m too old to be a lady magnet. And, yes, it\u2019s a difficult thing for me to admit. But sometimes you have to stare reality in the eye and accept the truth.\u00a0 But though I\u2019m old, I still love beer.<\/span><\/p>\n So if you’re younger than I am and you’re looking for a wife, try the beer tent at the Melon Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re not one to hang around beer tents with a bunch of half-drunk, party animals (myself excluded) you can play all sorts of chance games. Like \u201cKnock A Doll\u201d, \u201cThe Fish Pond\u201d, \u201cThe Birthday Game\u201d, \u201cKnock Down The Wooden Milk Bottles\u201d and tons more. All are run by the aforementioned gypsies. You can win great prizes if you\u2019re lucky; prizes like cool replicas of Zippo Lighters, plastic flashlights, bike reflectors, and Coca-Cola playing cards.<\/span><\/p>\n Every year you can watch the crowning of the Melon King, if that’s your thing…or you can eat melons and buy melons to take home!<\/span><\/p>\n So, let\u2019s get to the real reason why you came to the Melon Festival. The MELONS! Lovely melons everywhere you look! Big, tasty, juicy melons!<\/span><\/p>\n Visit the Cantaloupe (we call ’em “Muskmelons”) Wagon at the south end of the square and meet the Millers of Miller\u2019s Melons. Whether you call them cantaloupes, or muskmelons, they are skuzzy looking on the outside and nice and orange on the inside. Yummy! Juicy, sweet, and delicious, served right off the Miller\u2019s Melon Wagon. Dig in and let the juice run down your chin and all over your shirt!<\/span><\/p>\n (A little note: Did you know the term \u201cseedy\u201d comes from this? Indeed. Everyone who eats melons from the Wagon walks away with melon juice and seeds on their clothing. Hence, the term \u201cseedy\u201d was born.)<\/span><\/p>\n And\u2026the melons are hauled to the festival on wagons lined with hay. And if you picked up a few pieces of hay from the Wagon that got mixed up with the melons, you would become a \u201chayseed\u201d. It\u2019s interesting to learn these terms came to be \u2013 and that Milan is the source of \u201cseedy\u201d and \u201chayseed\u201d. Interesting huh?)<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, you\u2019ll want to try the various melon treats available throughout the square. You can have a melon milkshake, a melon ice cream cone, or a rich, frozen chocolate-covered melon slice. If you\u2019re adventurous, you might want to sink your seedy teeth into a slice of breaded, deep-fried watermelon or muskmelon slices. Or feast on a melon burger covered with ketchup, mustard, and onions and served with hot, greasy melon fries. Try some melon mustard, melon pickles, and melon pancakes too. Or if you\u2019ve got a competitive nature, enter the Official Muskmelon Eating Contest; you just might make the Guinness Book of World Records<\/i> \u2026 if you can eat more than fifty-two muskmelons in twelve minutes. Alka-Seltzer is provided \u2013 free of charge \u2013 by the gracious Milan Village Council (you think I\u2019m kidding, but I\u2019m not).<\/span><\/p>\n The Milan Melon Festival is held in the town square of Milan, Ohio. It\u2019s pretty small. Fifty or sixty people could mill about rather comfortably in the town square. At Melon Festival time, there are over 5000 folks, many of whom never heard of soap and deodorant – all crowded in the square\u2026some hanging from the roof of of the stately gazebo which normally sits abandoned, smack dab in the middle of town square.<\/span><\/p>\n I hope I\u2019ve painted an inviting picture of the Melon Festival for you and by now you can understand why people travel far and wide to celebrate melons! <\/span><\/p>\n Everyone who lives within 100 miles of Milan, is chomping at the bit waiting for this weekend to arrive. They’re crazy about melons!\u00a0 If you come to Milan, Ohio this weekend, and you\u2019re looking for me, try the beer tent first, that\u2019s probably where I\u2019ll be: Drinking beer, reveling in the festive atmosphere \u2013 with celebrating the melons all around me.<\/span><\/p>\n By the way: The cops in Milan are busy (all 3 of them) controlling the thousands of folks packed like sardines in the town square, all trying to get a glimpse or a taste of melons. <\/span><\/p>\n You can speed through Milan this coming weekend as the world-famous Milan Speed Trap is closed during the Melon Festival. And if you don\u2019t like huge crowds of people trying to move around in a small town square in 90-degree heat, speeding right through Milan might be a great idea.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t care about being squashed (no pun intended) by the mass of humanity that will pack the square in Milan, Ohio this weekend. It\u2019s Labor Day Weekend…Let’s Celebrate Melons! Let’s Celebrate Melons Those of you living in big and sophisticated cities will be astonished to learn that we who live in more-or-less rural areas of America, get all worked up about summer festivals. It may seem sad to you, even pathetic, but it is true. So far, this summer, in my neck-of-the-woods, we\u2019ve had the Cherry\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28972"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28975,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972\/revisions\/28975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/melon-man.JPG\")
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\nThe Melon King (Really!)
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