When I was younger my family lived in St. Charles, IL.  This small suburb is about an hour out side the city of Chicago.  When I was young my parents would always take my sister and I to the annual scarecrow festival.  The festival was held in the historic downtown St. Charles every year during the fall.

At the festival was an extremely large display of scarecrows.  There were about five different categories that you got to vote on the scarecrows in.  However, the voting was very minor compared to the rest of the activities there was to do.  The scarecrows merely served to set the atmosphere.  There were tons of games and prizes to win.  There was also plenty of free give-aways and live music and entertainment, not to mention there were a lot of different types of food.

I have several different memories of this festival. I have memories when I was extremely young going with my family including grandparents.  First we would look at all the scarecrows while we ate our corn on the cob.  Then there were animals to pet, so we would play with them and end with sitting on the grass listening to country music.

I have slightly different memories of this festival as I got older.  All of the teenagers would go with all their friends.  It was more of a social event to get together and eat and listen to music.

This festival always got everyone in the mood for fall.  It was usually held a month or so after summer ended, so the air was getting colder and the leaves were starting to turn. However, thanksgiving and Halloween were still in the future.  But most of all it was an event that celebrated the city of St. Charles.  It was a time when everyone, families, teachers, restaurant owners, and priests, got together and socialize outside their normal environment.