Saturday morning I woke up, drank the coffee and crawled into the van. Dan was having reservations about the mechanical aspects of the vehicle so Grandma Lila was urged to follow behind in her car in case the worse should occur. The trip to Fremont was uneventful, yet dawn was breaking my desire for sleep. This was my first show, and I had no idea what to expect.

Setup was exhausting. I was found myself unsure as to the positioning of the various poles in the setup of the stand and as Dan was off parking the van. The prospect of success proved to be more and more futile, so I met our neighbors. There was the girl with the rot iron statues, the proverbial South Americans with their woven handbags and a local jewelry company run by a snide businessman with no sense of autonomy.

Not a half hour after we had finished preparations the streets slowly filled with people; and intensity. I wasn’t sure as to what I should say to the people and how I should say it. ‘Hey guys, checking out the tie-dye’s are we?’ I caught myself saying a couple times. Then the sun came out; the whole scenery was noisy and bright, so I had a few energy drinks to cope. Around 11:30, there was an instantaneous surge of people which meant that the parade was over and there on out the stand was seldom unoccupied.

Dan was selling tie-dyes left and right and I was doing my best to keep up. People would walk by dressed in face paint and a miniature loin cloths, or fully clad in a thick-quilted dresses and a tiny umbrella which, in its entirety, resembled women from the burlesque houses in the Far East. The stage down the way kept on blasting the local musical talent and in between sets one could hear MC hammer’s ‘Can’t touch this’ on the stereo.

Places this far north are blessed with the sun setting at ungodly hours; the sun decided to go start going down past 7:00 and as the crowds thinned out. Fellow vendors started to take down their stands.

We began our prep work.