According to my dad’s recollections, this type of gathering was one where people did stand up comedy upon a makeshift stage. People would also put on play productions with costumes and dance around in tomfoolery. A show of fireworks would also be part of these gatherings, but after one incident involving a cousin of my dad’s where a firework failed to take off and exploded causing his death, the gatherings were discontinued.

My dad said these gatherings stopped occurring sometimes in his teen years (1970’s) after the aforementioned incident. He recalled going to some and seeing the fun people had. It was a gathering for people to be silly and enjoy comedy. He sounded sad retelling what happened to his cousin and very nostalgic as he often refers to his teen years as “the good old times” as one does.

I tried to imagine what these would have looked like and to me, I picture them like a comedy show put on in a ranch with people laughing and drinking. I could imagine the sadness people felt after the unfortunate circumstances that ended this joyous tradition.