The beards of Bloomburg were out Saturday for the Cullen Baker Fair.
They always are, and that's a long while-for this was the 45th annual year of the Cullen Baker Fair.
Beards are highfashion among the fair's crowdgoers. One can hide behind them as well as stand out. What could be better than that.
Bloomburg's fair brings upwards of 1,500 people to stroll East Main Street. This year had the fair's highest number of vendors-165 signed on to show up, according to fair organizer Melissa Harrington.
Dogs and horses are also popular and welcomed. Anything alive. This year's edition had huge snakes in glass cages and colorful little parakeets and parrots in wire ones.
Something about wandering Bloomburg's wide-and-straight streets, block after block, is comforting. A parade is really a parade if it takes at least 10 minutes to pass by and that is paced slowly at its best. Time enough to talk to the revelers if one wishes and can get so close that much of the thrown candy is ignored.
Photo Gallery
Fashion show: Jerell Scott
The Jerell Scott collection in the Designer's Choice Fashion Preview held on March 28 at the Clear Channel Metroplex.
Bloomburg's parade always stops in the middle with hands going over hearts as from somewhere off in the distance someone sings the "The Star Spangled Banner."
Of course, four-wheelers and car machines of all kinds are in high-style for the parade. This year, no marching bands or coordinated drill teams showed up, but sometimes such groups are a bit of overkill. It's the variety of life being celebrated, not a season or group. It's neighborliness that's on display. All the profit is going to the volunteer fire department.
And so beards are important. So is the face painting, the way one is dressed, the boots one is wearing. It's a time to look at people without cellphones in their hands. Maybe catch the glance of an eye.
Just walk and look, that's the ticket. Celebrate the fact that even Cullen Baker, although an outlaw, probably had some supporters, maybe even someone who loved him.
If he didn't, well then the fair celebrates justice prevailing. And it would seem everyone celebrates those beards, too.