Don't forget that Saturday September 28th, 2013 A.D.
is Burro Day in
Schuylkill Haven
The Running of the Burros has changed since Ernest Hemingway first experienced it. Where there were once open doorways and steps that a wayward donkey could maneuver, they've put up barricades. Where once a few Schuylkill Havenites and ex-patriots ran with the burros, now there are tourists from all corners of the world.
Where before they ran to show off their machismo, or like that Lost Generation, out of boredom, now they mostly run because of Hemingway, who resided for several years at the Country Squire Motel and who arm-wrestled Gertrude Stein to a draw in the Squire's lounge. But, while many things have changed, just as many have remained the same.
The singing of the prayers to Saint John, Saint Peter or Saint Charles, the all night partying at the D & D, the Downtown Tavern, the Uptown Tavern and the Midtown Tavern as well as the Green Goose Playground, and the thrill of being pursued across the Columbia Street Bridge towards the Parkway by an animal that is so slow moving that you would have to have the most incredible of bad luck to be hurt. You would be referred to as a "dumm Scheiße " if you happened to be injured.
The "Chupinazo", the Pennsylvania Dutch rocket signaling that the Festival has begun, will burst over your head at noon on the 28th of September and you don your scarves, but the Festival started hours before as the crowds in Le Bubec Parc doubles and re-doubles every 15 minutes, champagne, eggs and bags of flour in hand.
As the drinks and funnel cake are consumed so are the revelers, they begin pelting everyone with eggs, shaking champagne bottles and shooting the contents into the crowd and sailing the bags of flour into the air, so that by the time the rocket bursts overhead, everyone is covered in a smelly funnel cake batter-like substance. It is a glorious time to be in Schuylkill Haven.
BURRO DAY - SEPT. 28, 2013- BE THERE
