
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 27, 1995                   TAG: 9503280006
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DOWNTOWN FESTIVAL WOULD BE MULCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Virginia is one of the great festival states in the country. We have festivals for oysters, apples, tobacco and good-looking young women. We hold festivals in parks and on the waterfronts, in the mountains and on city streets.

Personally, I think a state can't have too many festivals and I'm going to add one.

The idea came after I had finished wheelbarrowing a huge load of mulch to various inaccessible parts of the property - after leaving a note on the location of the life insurance policies.

I now present:

****THE ANNUAL MULCH FESTIVAL DOWNTOWN****

The schedule:

- Friday afternoon: A dozen or so scantily clad young women push empty wheelbarrows - you gotta love the symbolism here - all over Elmwood Park. This is just an attention-getter. The solid stuff comes later.

Friday night: Local musicians perform original mulch folk music. Among the numbers sung by a group called "The Hard Breathers" is the touching ballad, "I Dug the Mulch and It Dug My Grave."

The young ladies with the wheelbarrows - now full of mulch you can smell for a mile - do a torrid number and collapse, sneezing violently.

Saturday morning: Orthopedists and allergists, who are donating their time, open booths on Jefferson Street.

The orthopedists give advice on what to do when you have completely unsocketed your hips by running a wheelbarrow over steep, uneven ground while trying not to spill your mulch.

The allergists will give helpful tips on how to handle mulch without feeling that your head is breaking wide open and how to cope with not being able to breathe at night and sitting up and watching dubious movies on HBO.

The wheelbarrow ladies may not show up Saturday morning. It depends on whether they unsocketed their hips during their number the night before.

Saturday afternoon: An art show on the theme of what can happen to you during the mulch season. Most of the pictures depict average homeowners screaming a lot.

Saturday night: This was going to be the time for one of the greatest productions seen at this end of the Shenandoah Valley.

It was going to be a version of "West Side Story" staged on a one-acre pile of mulch.

Instead, the folk singers will be back. Half of the cast members, including all of the members of the Jets gang, are being treated for allergies.

by CNB