Swine Fest On The River '07

Well peeples, it's that time of year again. It's Paducah's own little holiday on river. It's a pinch of Fourth of July, mixed with a dash of St. Patrick's Day and whole mess of Giving Thanks. You got your weekend that everyone looks forward too, a nicely squared-off area to drink your swill that you had to use tickets to procure (what's the gig with the tickets and feeling like a rednosed raffle winner everytime you have to go buy more?) and a whole lot of chow to mow down on. Oh yea, it's Swine Fest on The River '07!

If Richard Simmons filmed an exercise video hear this weekend it'd be called "Porkin' to The Oldies". If Ron Popeil were at the riverfront, he'd tell you to throw some swine in the trusty Showtime Rotisserie Grill and "Pork it and forget it." Yogi Berra - if asked about the Swine Fest, would tell you, "When you come to a pork in the road, take it." If the Swine Fest had a debate, Rudy Porkliani would go toe to toe with Porklary Clinton. If ESPN covered the event, highlights would be on the 10 O'Clock Porkcenter. Okay, enuff of the "Wayne's World-esque" action. Werd.

With all the assorted variations on swine, sweets and swill, downtown is like the last challenge prior to the not-so Biggest Loser being sent home to show his/her spouse how hot they now are before reminding them how hot they ain't. As an afront, I wonder how many perfectly happy overweight marriages that show has busted up because it made one spouse hot and gave them self-confidence while leaving the other, at home, to take care of the kids, manage their lives and count the Twinkies until the other came home?

Back to the pork at hand. Essentially, every booth down at the Fest has swine that would make you smack yo grandmomma in the teeth if she had them in. I've never ate anything down there that wasn't tasty. Of course, I'm kinda like that bald guy on that show that comes on that cable network once a week, i.e. I ain't ate too much I didn't dig. You're real quandry is on who's swine do you dine?

That's where you get yourself into a whole mess of decidin'. Dry rub v. sauce. Hot v. mild. Beef v. chicken. The booth barbecuing for Jesus v. the booth barbecuing for some charity you've never heard of. Whichever one you decide to bone up with, you can't go wong.

Another factor that has to be thrown into to your math before you solve the Swine Fest equation is, at what time do you go? Choosing the wrong time to show can cause you either to see a whole helluva of a lot of people you know - which, in turn, means you talk to them as opposed to the person(s) that brung ye, which may or may not be desireable- or you won't see any porkin' people that you know at all. This two, much like a menu that defines "mountain oysters", can be advantageous for reasons that will remain nameless.

And then ewe got ewe're fried items. Twinkies. Oreos. Ice cream. Cheesecake. Allegedly, some charitable bunch of artery-cloggers are fryin' up Snickers this year. There's so much tasty fried goodness down there that the Cardiology Group has a booth. I heard that Western Baptist is going to have a booth equipped with a catheter lab on site.

Swine Fest '07 looks to be better than its porkcessors. Stop by the ATM, grab some cash, brush up on using a defibulator and get your pork on!

I'm just sayin.....