It’s the week of the Lyon County Fair, which means that we’re getting close to the end of the 2024 season of summer celebrations.

The season will wrap up in September with Boxcar Days in Tracy and Boxelder Bug Days in Minneota. We’re having another great year of weekend get togethers.

When we think of summer celebrations, it’s important to remember that they don’t just happen automatically. They take work. They happen only because enough people in each town are willing to get involved.

One thing that’s needed is a core group of organizers, people who start planning months in advance. They arrange for entertainers, plan the attractions and recruit volunteers.

The volunteers play an important role shortly before, during and after the celebrations. Someone needs to fry hamburgers. Someone needs to shovel the horse poop after the parade. There are countless other jobs for people to work with.

The celebrations around the region have mostly endured. There have been only several exceptions since the 1990s. In many cases, young volunteers have stepped in to replace those who’ve reached retirement.

I think celebrations are well suited to small towns. There’s no option to just sit back and wait for other people to do the work. If that becomes a trend, the celebration will have an uncertain future.

Instead people always step up and do the jobs. Some of them do the same job year after year. When that happens, they make the celebration almost run itself.

The payoff is considerable. It brings large crowds to town. It’s a very good thing for local business that often have special bargains to coincide with the festivities.

The crowd is always more than just town residents and people from the surrounding countryside. Some people drive from 50 or even 100 miles away to experience a parade, food stands, often a car show, probably a softball tournament and much more.

I went to Ivanhoe last weekend, to my dad’s hometown for Polska Kielbasa Days. I was able to spend some extra time there this year since it was one of the few years Polish Days and the Lyon County Fair didn’t happen on the same weekend.

I parked my car next to my grandparents house and walked around the town. I stopped at the VFW Hall for Polish ethnic food, then went down to Gilson Field to go through the vendor fair.

While doing that I thought about many memories. I thought about my grandpa being a baseball umpire, buying candy at the downtown cafe that was called George’s, and the fire department water contests next to the old fire hall.

After experiencing the activities, I went out to the cemetery to see our family plot with three generations of graves. It was good to see how Ivanhoe has changed, and how it remains a great place to call home.

Sometimes a celebration doesn’t involve special memories. It can also be fun to go to a town that has no strong connection, but that puts on a weekend filled with events and that welcomes guests.

Celebrations will probably be around for many years to come. They’ve stood the test of time. They’ve become a tradition that people like.

Many people come back for family reunions and class reunions planned in conjunction with the big weekend. Others come every year. It’s always fun to see who came back for it.

I feel sorry for anyone who’s lonely or sad and just not able to get into the spirit of a community celebration. It’s a chance to do something that can make a person happy. It can bring joy to people of all ages and people from all walks of life. It offers something for everyone.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent