Riverfest success

By TOM KANE

NARROWSBURG, NY - Extraordinary things have been happening in the Delaware River Valley. There have been record floods, new sand and gravel bars in the Big Eddy and under the Cochecton Bridge, and tycoons who want to put power lines through the region.

All these events and concerns brought comments from hundreds of Riverfest attendees on July 23 as an unusual consciousness of the river’s importance dominated people’s conversations at informational booths about storm water, flood prevention and valley conservation coalitions.

And speaking of concerns, Main Street was jam packed all day, allaying fears that conflicting events, such as a daytime Jazz Festival at Bethel Woods in Bethel and the annual Audubon Craft Festival in Hawley, PA, would hurt attendance.

“We were very pleased with the attendance at our booth,” said Pat Carullo, one of the organizers of the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition. “We handed out hundreds of fliers and many signs. We also added a hundred or so names to our website. I thought the attendance at the festival was excellent.”

Besides exceptional craft and food booths, live music and children’s activities, festivities featured a parade of outlandishly costumed dogs and their masters. A partially paralyzed dachshund named Dixie, attired for the day in a bun, won Best in Show. Click here for a complete slideshow of each dog participant.

Beautiful and strange stilt figures from the North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL) in Highland Lake loomed large and performed street theater, handing out brochures for their Catskill Festival of New Theater.

A deliberately shortened poster auction drew large expenditures and an appreciative audience. “The auction brought in just under $11,000, the second highest amount raised during the 16-year history of the festival,” said Elaine Giguere, Executive Director of the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, the event’s principal organizer.