Dispatch from Forbearance Presbyterian Church
Adele and the
Strawberry Festival
by charlotte johnstone
When Forbearance's Community Outreach committee asked Adele
Washington to oversee the church's very first Strawberry Festival,
she agreed after hearing it described as not only a celebration
for Forbearance's members, but also as a way to attract the larger
community to the church with an outdoor event of exciting possibilities.
Adele was a good organizer and her enthusiasm grew with each
new suggestion for a splendid summer day of family fun. She lined
up volunteers, researched types of activities, contacted vendors,
made booth assignments and oversaw a flurry of preparations on
the church grounds for the big day. The cooperation among Forbearance's
members was excellent and everything was proceeding according
to schedule. She remade her lists and checked them twice and,
when she set out for the church on festival day, she anticipated
the dawning of a Forbearance tradition that would endure for
many years.
And just as she
planned, Forbearance's grounds presented
a marvelous scene-
bright balloons and banners, children racing around, adults
in conversation amid bursts of laughter, booths and festival
attractions operating at full capacity-a panorama of good cheer
and high spirits. Not only were most of Forbearance's members
there, but also, she was delighted to note, quite a number of
new people from the neighborhood.
Adele was everywhere, clipboard in hand, happily surveying
her domain, when the first hint of trouble arose with a small
commotion at the white elephant table when Chloe Makepeace discovered
the wedding present she had given just last year to Lois Borman's
daughter-a somewhat overwrought watercolor of Adam and Eve in
mid-banishment -now forlornly residing among old pots, chipped
plates and used toasters, and about to be sold to a neighborhood
woman for 50 cents. As Chloe snatched the painting from the astonished
woman's hands, she loudly declaimed that "If your daughter
did not appreciate my gift, Lois, she could have returned it
to me rather than discarding it with junk like that!" Lois,
who had been unaware of the painting's origin when she found
it stashed in her attic, was mortified and frantically engaged
in the sort of verbal backpedaling employed by those unable,
at the moment, to cough up a believable excuse. Chloe was not
buying any of it and, with the buyer demanding her 50 cents and
Adele rushing over to mediate, Chloe proclaimed herself thoroughly
insulted and huffed away in high dudgeon.
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