Fall Foliage Festival

In my youth, there were three dates that were always marked on my calendar. The Northern Appalachian Craft Festival in the spring meant watching the legendary bed races. The Great Bedford Fair had me spending much of the week either on the midway or manning the 4-H building. And after the start of school darkened my life, the lights began to brighten again with the Fall Foliage Festival.

Each of these activities drew my friends and I like moths to a candle as we rode our bikes downtown. As young boys, we weren’t too impressed by the handiwork of the talented craftspeople lining Juliana and Penn Streets. A little more of interest to us was the delicious food and drinks like the pulled pork sandwiches and fresh apple cider…oh, and the smells that go along with them that hung like a mouth-watering cloud across the Square.

For a car buff like me, the biggest draw has always been the Fall Foliage Festival’s antique car parade. My neighbor Dr. Gordon always led the parade carrying Miss Pennsylvania in the back of his Ford Model T. And with the Bedford Elks basically in my backyard, walking down to see the cars before the parade was probably the highlight of every year into high school.

Over the years, I met dozens of car owners and even hitched rides in the parade a number of times. Sometimes the cars were owned by friends like Dr Gordon’s Packard (driven by my father), sometimes they were people my folks knew like Bob Foor and his classic rumble seat Ford (with me seated between his daughters), and sometimes they were people I met just that morning like the Keggs and their beautiful ’57 Studebaker Golden Hawk. No matter who was there and whether or not I was in the parade, the cars were great and the people were friendly.

After I left Bedford, I still returned almost every year for the Festival and usually during the antique car parade weekend. But as the years have passed, I’ve come to notice that fewer and fewer locals show up to enjoy the activities. Granted, Fall Foliage pulls in thousands of people who would not otherwise visit our little burg, but the small inconvenience of the crowds is outweighed by the chance to run into someone you haven’t seen in ages. And seeing locals has become more important to me than the parade that I still hold dear.

Usually the only people we meet downtown are the few people we’ve previously planned to see. Our core group of friends knows that we’ll be in for the Festival, but the serendipity of seeing a former teacher or neighbor or classmate always brings out the kid in us like finding a surprise gift under the tree at Christmas. I fear that the locals may have lost excitement for the Festival that I once had as a kid.

My love of the Fall Foliage Festival (and Bedford in general) reemerged a few years ago when we were staying at the newly-opened Bedford Springs. Meeting some visitors one October afternoon, the couple asked me, as a former local, what there was to see and do in Bedford. I was shocked that they had come to Bedford during Fall Foliage and didn’t know about the event! I immediately directed them into town. “You can’t miss it,” I explained.

Yet, many of my former neighbors miss it every year. Oh, they might stop by for a moment or two after church on Sunday morning, before the big crowds arrive, but it’s seeing the people that is a big part of the experience. Hopefully this year, you’ll take the time in the middle of a Saturday and walk downtown. Reconnect with some people you haven’t seen in a while. Maybe even meet someone new. Perhaps even getting to ride with them in their 1957 Studebaker. It could happen.