Healdsburg Future Farmers Parade, Fair Wrap Up 75th Season

Soooo the 75th annual Healdsburg Future Farmers parade and fair over this long Memorial Day weekend were a total smash, per usual. Aside from a guy I saw flag down a Bell’s ambulance in the middle of the parade route (not sure what happened, but he looked relatively OK) and a few straggling floats, there were no wayward incidents reported during the parade. “This is the biggest event of the year and it went off without incident,” the Healdsburg Police Department said of the parade and fair on Facebook. One parade highlight, of the 70-plus floats in the lineup, was the Oaxacan “Carnaval Putleco” group — aka, those dancers in big shaggy costumes and crazy masks, with a young “queen” atop a pickup leading the way. KQED public radio just published a great piece on their performance. Here’s an excerpt: “As the truck carrying [Iris Alejandra Arcos Cisneros, 18] moves through the streets of Healdsburg, dozens of dancers follow closely behind. Each dancer is wearing a tiliche — an incredibly colorful and elaborate full-body suit made out of hundreds of ribbons that move in all directions as the dancer deftly skips and jumps to the rhythm of the music. When one person dances with a tiliche on, you start noticing more details: a mask made of animal fur and an oversized hat made of palm straw. But seeing many tiliches together at once becomes an experience. … Dozens of blocks of nonstop dancing later, Carnaval Putleco finally made it to the end of the parade. They gathered at the house of one of the member families in Healdsburg. As the dancers streamed into the backyard to relax, they removed their masks. Everyone is soaked in sweat. Each tiliche weighs at least 20 pounds, and the more elaborate ones can weigh up to 40 pounds. It’s a serious workout under the hot Sonoma sun. Thankfully, a giant pot of delicious pozole is ready — perfect to replenish body and soul.” The fair, too, seemed like it went off without a hitch. All the usual fair foods were out in full force — pozole, elote, hotdogs, corndogs, tacos, BBQ, teriyaki, ice cream, funnel cake, you name it. Then there were the pens full of bunnies and chickens, the live music trailer, the Swan Brothers Circus, the rock-climbing tower, the bouncy houses, the garden exhibits, the kids showing farm animals and auctioning them off, the teen dramas unfolding under the bright lights of Rec late into the night. Healdsburg may be rapidly changing, but this is one tradition that sure hasn’t changed much. (Source: Healdsburg Tribune & Sonoma County Gazette & KQED & Healdsburg Future Farmers Country Fair via Facebook & Facebook Groups & Healdsburg Police Department via Facebook)