Last Friday Lisa and I left town and headed to Columbus with two cars (her van and a rented cargo van). Our ultimate destination was Lisa's parents' home in Cleveland in order to pick up some bedroom furniture for Emily. However, we decided to take a detour to Columbus for their annual Jazz and Ribfest. We have gone to the Jazz and Ribfest quite a few times before but we missed that last two because of Lisa's pregnancy and the subsequent arrival of Emily.
Our prior experience's with the festival have been very positive. It has always been a pretty family friendly place, albiet crowded, with a vast array of both culture's and economic backgrounds. A melting pot of good music, good food, and friendly folks. With that in mind we were pretty excited to be going, plus we would get to eat Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ Ribs (which, incidently, are still great). However, we didn't arrive in Columbus until nearly 11pm so the crowds were pretty thin (though still substantial) and we only had a small window of opportunity to reach our rib dinner destination.
Upon arrival we began to wade through the crowd. Most of the rib vendors were experiencing a lull in traffic but we were having a lot of trouble finding Butch's stand. He wasn't in his normal (as we remember it) position. After walking past just over half of the vendors on the eastern side of the river I sensed some growing tension and started to encourage Lisa to walk a bit faster. Almost instanlty a huge fight broke out right behind us. There was close to 60 people running around flailing at each other. Caos! I pushed Lisa to move faster to get away from the brawl before it spread outward and caught up innocent bystanders in the area. I finally got the two of us off a ways into a grassy area and we watched as the mob inched closer and closer to where we had been. Finally it just disintegrated as the large police presence reached the fight. Lisa and I then went and got some ribs (there was nowhere else open at that hour) and retreated back into the grassy area to eat.
About when we were finishing our meal a huge line of police officers started running, really fast, past the booth where we purchased our ribs. Needless to say, at this point, we were ready to go. So we snuck out the way we came in. We were both pretty disappointed.
The next day we spent a bunch of time at a shopping area called Easton Town Center before heading back to the hotel. Once there Lisa told me to pick a place to eat so I decided we would just eat at the Max and Erma's in the mall connected to our hotel. However, it was 9:30pm and for some reason it was closed on a Saturday night. Dismayed we headed back to the ribfest. Immediately Lisa was on guard as a large group of young guys came running out of the festival jumping around with each other. As we rounded the corner there were a couple cops standing there and a much larger crowd than from the night before. However, there were three officers on horseback plowing through the crowd and coming at us. Lisa was getting pretty nervous at this point so we decided to just eat ribs from the very first vendor. By the time we were done with the ribs (not as good as Butch's, but not bad) Lisa said she felt better and wanted to find an ear of corn. So off we went into the crowd. We couldn't find any corn but I did buy a giant cream puff. Once I had my pastry in hand we started to head back to the entrance but I had Lisa stop walking so I could eat without slamming into people. We stood off to the side next to two rib vendors and watched as the crowds went by. Just as I was about to finish my cream puff another fight broke out - right in front of us. I pulled Lisa back a little and immediately she ran back behind one of the Rib vendors. I tried to follow her but was pushed off to the other side by a large swarm of people also getting out of the way (including a pregnant lady). The fight was broken up pretty fast and the crowd dispersed again so I could finally get over to Lisa. She was talking to the rib vendor who said it was the third big fight in front of her booth that night. We were really disgruntled then. In fact, we won't be going back to the Columbus Jazz and Ribfest again.
Even after what had happened we weren't ready to write off the festival completely yet but the same vendor told us that in the prior year a riot actually broke out and the police had to shut down all the vendors and bring in tear gas to break it up. The family friendly atmosphere, it appears, is no longer. What a shame.
On Sunday we drove up to Cleveland and moved a bunch of stuff around for Lisa's mom and Lisa's brother. Finally we had the cargo van loaded with our stuff and began the trip home. Before we even left Lisa's neighborhood I was pulled over for "Failing to stop at a stopsign" The officer claims I "Blew right through it". I am doubtful of his claim - but I live in WV and it would cost me just as much to contest it as it would to pay the fine. $110. What pain in the ass. I only have two real driving pet-peeves; not using your turn signal when merging and not stopping at stop signs. Because of this I'm pretty anal about both so I'm fairly certain I didn't blow through the stop-sign. I think my out of state tags made me an easy victim of a cop trying to increase city revenues. As it turns out he is a friend of Lisa's family and when he found out I was related he felt really badly about giving me the ticket. He even called his Sergeant to try and get the ticket dropped (supposedly). Seems to me that if I was really guilty it shouldn't matter who I am. We sent in the money today. What a bummer.
We finally made it home at sometime after midnight and then made it to bed by around 2:30am. It was a long, disappointing weekend. The only thing good about it was that Lisa and I had the opportunity to spend some extra time together.
#Music #Family #FunStuff #MyLife #Travel
