Carnival of Family Life

Wel­come to the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Har­vest Edi­tion! This is a very spe­cial time of year here in “Liv­able, Lov­able Lodi” that, as a child, I always looked for­ward to with great antic­i­pa­tion and excite­ment. This com­ing Thurs­day through Sun­day is the annual Lodi Grape Fes­ti­val and Har­vest Fair!

For the past 74 years, Lodi has boasted its very own fes­ti­val and car­ni­val, the pur­pose of which is to “pro­mote the agri­cul­ture and agri­cul­tural prod­ucts of San Joaquin County, and to offer diverse forms of agri­cul­tural edu­ca­tion. The Fes­ti­val strives to present unique, family–oriented exhibits that not only enter­tain, but edu­cate and enlighten.”

The idea of an annual cel­e­bra­tion of the grape har­vest actu­ally dates back to the Tokay Car­ni­val which was held just once in 1907. There was a queen and king, band con­certs, a Wild West show, vaude­ville acts, numer­ous dis­plays, and a parade down the dirt streets of down­town Lodi which had just become a city the pre­vi­ous year. The Car­ni­val was so ambi­tious, in fact, that such an event was not attempted again until the Grape Fes­ti­val was estab­lished in 1934.

The Lodi Busi­ness Men’s Asso­ci­a­tion held a queen con­test with cus­tomers vot­ing to select the win­ner. The Lodi Cham­ber of Com­merce spon­sored com­pe­ti­tions for the best and largest bunch of grapes, etc. There was a car­ni­val and parades.

Grape murals first appeared in 1950 and remain the Festival’s trade­mark. Indi­vid­ual grapes are glued onto large dis­play boards, cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful designs in keep­ing with the Festival’s theme. Clubs, school groups, and indi­vid­u­als com­pete for cash prizes and the honor of drap­ing a rib­bon over the cor­ner of their win­ning design.

In the early days, Lodi’s grape crop was har­vested using small, curved knives and each bunch was cut by hand before being tossed into the heavy wood lug boxes. Red Flame Tokay grapes were the vari­ety for which the city was best known. Hence, Lodi High’s mas­cot and teams are known as the Flames, and the school’s col­ors are red and white. In con­trast, I grad­u­ated from Tokay High School, the offi­cial col­ors of which are pur­ple and gold. Our school news­pa­per was the Tokay Press (an homage to wine and news­pa­per presses). My kids attended Vinewood School, and the names and logos of many local busi­nesses and shop­ping cen­ters reflect Lodi’s agri­cul­tural focus includ­ing Flame Liquor, Arbor Con­va­les­cent Hos­pi­tal, Vin­tage senior liv­ing cen­ter, Wine Coun­try Care Cen­ter, etc.  Our city tran­sit sys­tem is known as the Grape­line, and many city streets bear names such as Tokay, Zin­fan­del, Chi­anti, Bur­gundy, etc.

Today, har­vest­ing machines strad­dle the grapevines, mov­ing up and down the rows day and night, mechan­i­cally strip­ping the grapes off. Few Flame Tokay grapes remain, hav­ing been replaced by zin­fan­dels, caber­net sauvi­gnon, syrah, chardon­nay and mer­lots. In fact, the city’s motto is “Zin­fan­del Cap­i­tal of the World.” Many peo­ple do not real­ize that Lodi pro­duces more zin­fan­dels than the Napa wine region and, in fact, many of the world’s finest wines can trace their ori­gins to the vines that sur­round our fair village.

The Fes­ti­val has changed over the years, as has the grape indus­try it hon­ors each Sep­tem­ber  Although the Sat­ur­day morn­ing Kid­die Parade remains extremely pop­u­lar (yes, as a child, I was a par­tic­i­pant), the Sun­day after­noon parade was dis­con­tin­ued in 2002 due to a lack of inter­est.  And the last Grape Fes­ti­val Queen was crowned in 1980, a sign of the chang­ing roles and inter­ests of Lodi’s young women.

The Fes­ti­val fea­tures enter­tain­ment and I will be per­form­ing again this year. If you’re in the area, stop in and lis­ten to the Lodi Com­mu­nity Band per­form this Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 13, 2008, at 4:15 p.m. in the Grape Pavil­ion.  I’ll be in the front row play­ing my flute and pic­colo so make sure you say “hello” after the concert! 

Edu­ca­tion

Becky presents 4 Shoot­ing Stars and No School Sup­plies posted at Life With­out School.

Rachel presents The 3 Biggest Thing to look for in a Utah Per­sonal Injury Lawyer posted at Utah Per­sonal Injury Lawyer.  “Legal issues can often leave a fam­ily aching and torn apart because they cost so much money,” Rachel advises.

Dad presents 11/4/2006 — The Party posted at Falsely Accused Dad, warn­ing read­ers that “what hap­pened to me is some­thing all par­ents, espe­cially fathers need to be aware of.”

Fam­ily Cook­ing & Recipes

Mon­eyN­ing presents Bartlett Farm Heir­loom Tomato Salad posted at An Easy Recipe To Make Cook­ing Sim­ple, describ­ing how to make an easy tomato salad.

Deanna Caswell presents Peanut But­ter Play-Doh! posted at Lit­tle House in the Sub­urbs.

Karen Lynch presents Low Prices? or Abun­dance? (Live The Power) posted at Live the Power.

Stephanie presents Crock Pot Apple But­ter posted at Stop the Ride!

Fam­ily Crafts and Activities

Toni presents The Sen­ti­men­tal Garage Sale posted at Wifely Steps.  “My sis­ters and I pre­pared this garage sale,” Toni writes. “It was dif­fi­cult let­ting go of some things, but we knew they’d find a bet­ter home some­place else. ”

light52 presents Buck­ets of Fun posted at Liv­ing On Less.

How­ToMe presents How To Eas­ily Make a Stor­age Sack posted at How­ToMe. “Does any­one else store toys and sea­sonal cloth­ing in plas­tic trash sacks?” she asks. She received a tip from her neigh­bor and dis­cov­ered that it is very easy to make a fab­ric, draw­string sack from a pil­low­case.  Stop by her site to learn how.

Fam­ily Finance

Fire Get­ters presents Knock Out Your Finan­cial Prob­lems Like Rocky posted at Fire Finance.

freefrom­broke presents What Is Rais­ing A Child Worth — We’re Going To One Income posted at Free From Broke. They recently made the deci­sion to drop to one income so that the author’s wife can stay home to raise the kids.

Brice Hogan presents Inde­pen­dent Profit Cen­ter The Review posted at My World, a review he com­pleted for a com­pany with which he is cur­rently work­ing to earn extra income.

Sil­i­con Val­ley Blog­ger presents Save For Col­lege Using These Tools and Strate­gies posted at The Digerati Life.

The Smarter Wal­let presents Eat Well for Cheap! How To Eat Out For Less posted at The Smarter Wal­let, offer­ing tips on how to bring down the cost of din­ing out, espe­cially “when you have your fam­ily in tow.”

Abby Freed­man presents It’s not skimp­ing! posted at i pick up pen­nies. “Being a respon­si­ble par­ent includes know­ing when to say ‘Enough!’ Specif­i­cally,” accord­ing to Abby, “it includes rais­ing kids who know they don’t ‘deserve’ every­thing they see.”

Fam­ily Health and Wellness

Aparna presents Car­ing for your neck and some awe­some neck-exercises posted at Beauty and Per­son­al­ity Groom­ing.  “The impor­tance of a long, beau­ti­ful and ele­gant neck has been an inte­gral part of con­ven­tional beauty from ancient days,” Aparna instructs. “In Africa, many tribes have a dread­ful cus­tom of putting cop­per rings around the necks of their baby girls to elon­gate them and show how pros­per­ous they are!”

Fam­ily Humor

Pudgy Pen­cils presents You might be a lil’ red­neck if … posted at Tod­dler @ Play! She sug­gested includ­ing it in the “Over­heard at the Hen­house” category.

Anne May­bus presents The Great Sock Sea­son posted at The Tall Poppy. “Win­ter has just fin­ished in Aus­tralia so my socks might get a reprieve for a while … ” Anne writes.

Laura Scar­bor­ough presents bank of Dad posted at Adven­tures in Jug­gling.

BeThisWay presents Lessons in Patience posted at Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You?.

Fam­ily Rela­tion­ships and Self-Improvement

Mom­maR­alph presents My Baby’s first day of Kinder­garten posted at Momma’s Blog.

Aahz presents Now That’s The Reac­tion I’ve Been Look­ing For posted at Phi­laah­zo­phy, explain­ing, “It’s been a strug­gle get­ting my 12 yeard old daugh­ter really excited about some­thing. But I finally hit the nail on the head thanks to Miley Cyrus.”

Donna Freed­man presents Fam­ily mat­ters more than finance posted at Smart Spend­ing.  Donna says, “Every year I spend my vaca­tion days vis­it­ing fam­ily — I make room in my bud­get for plane tick­ets. The time to tell peo­ple you love them is now, and in person.”

Jen­nifer in OR presents …that holds a mother to life… posted at Diary of 1.

Desk Coder presents Get the Spouse On-Board! posted at Quit­ting The Day Job.

Fam­ily Spirituality/Belief/Worship

BeThisWay presents What Did I Give It All Up For? « Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You? posted at Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You?.

GP presents Noth­ing Suc­ceeds Like Suc­cess posted at Manely Mon­tana Mem­o­ries.

Fam­ily Travel

San­dra Foyt presents Hunt­ing Travel Mem­o­ries At The Atlantis posted at On Liv­ing By Learn­ing.  “The Atlantis is a fun-filled fam­ily travel des­ti­na­tion, but it’s a chal­lenge to explore the Bahamas’ island cul­ture when you’re stay­ing in the resort,” accord­ing to Sandra.

Par­ent­ing Tips and Advice

Lisa Mitchell presents My Baby: 9 Months (well almost 10 actu­ally!) posted at Let’s Talk Babies.

Alex Smith presents Home Secu­rity Sys­tems — How to Choose posted at TBO-TECH.

Nicholas Pow­iull presents Growth through Prac­tic­ing Uncon­di­tional Love: Par­ent­ing: by Nicholas Pow­iull posted at Con­scious Flex.

Joe presents GPS Kid Track­ing Tip — Adven­ture is King posted at GPS Track­ing Watches, say­ing, “Get­ting your child to buy into their GPS safety device and to value it can be dif­fi­cult, but with this tip you can help give your child a vested inter­est in it — giv­ing you some peace of mind while you have fun with your child.”

webrun­ner presents How To San­i­tize Soft Baby Toys posted at Happy Giraffe Baby Site.

Kevin Heath presents 7 Strate­gies For Effec­tive Time­outs posted at More4kids.

Csara presents Potty Train­ing Day 1 posted at Baby Talk­ers, say­ing, “Potty Train­ing Day 1. It’s offi­cial!“

Thank you all for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Car­ni­val this week!

Sub­mit a blog arti­cle for the Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008, Edi­tion of the Car­ni­val by click­ing here!

The Car­ni­val archive can be viewed here.

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Tech­no­rati Tags: Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life, Lodi Grape Fes­ti­val and Har­vest Fair

On the Same Topic:

• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: The Merry Christ­mas 2009 — and Final — Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Thank­ful­ness Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Happy Hal­loween 2009 Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Sep­tem­ber 2009 “Fall Into Fall” Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: August 2009 Edition