fish fri

Saturday, we went to the Fish Fry with grandma  (who was a bit more her usual self). The Little Guy was very excited; while he was waiting to go, he drew all over our sidewalks, indicating with arrows and signs the directions to the “Fish Fri.” Grandma corrected his spelling, but I didn’t. I’ll admit to having more faith in this whole language stuff these days — he will eventually learn to spell it with a “y,” in the meanwhile, if he’s less hung up over spelling and right and wrong, he’s more likely to actually try to write recreationally. If I can get him to like writing first, I can get him to like correct writing later.

At any rate, we played on the playground, ate Lions Club fish and funnel cake (requested by the Little Guy, who remembered it from last year), listened to junior high choirs sing, and rode the little carnival rides. The Little Guy did most of that, with Miss Baby cheering him on. She was impressed by the whole affair, and applauded the lights and music and rides. She got out of her stroller and twirled and danced to the alarming Latino R&B/pop/whatever that they were playing near the rides.

Apparently, while DH and Miss Baby were near the bandstand, a person came by wearing a large banana costume, promoting Jamba Juice. Miss Baby stared and stared, until the person passed, then turned to DH and gestured, questioning, “Uh?,” which he translated as, “Did I just see what I thought I saw?”

It was a nice time; a bit nostalgic. I went to the Fish Fry a lot as a kid, and even marched in the parade one year, when we were in Indian Maidens. Yup, I walked the length of Harbor Blvd. in a brown corduroy dress, with feathers in my hair. I still have the dress. They used to close down Harbor Boulevard for the parade, but it got to be too expensive, and our current city council kinda has it in for the Lions Club (Yeah, pick on the charitable organization, that’ll show how cool and tough you are), so no more parades. Years ago, when we were first married, my DH and I went to the Fish Fry with my brother, and played little ring toss games. We won meat! Really — they had a big cooler of Farmer John sausage and bacon they were giving out as prizes. It was just so hilarious and hokey and nice. For a few years, they had the Fish Fry over at OCC, but they’ve returned to Lions Park (which was more or less built with Fish Fry funds), which I prefer, again, on the strength of nostalgia. The park has an old military plane in the middle of the playground; I played on it when I was a kid, and now my kids play on it. It’s one of the things that makes Costa Mesa seem like a nice little hometown kind of place, the kind of place a person actually would choose to live in (and the kind of thing our current city council doesn’t think we need).

This year, I finally got my own Fish Fry poster. We’ll frame it and hang it in NC; no one else will know what it means, but that’s OK.