Tulip Festival 2022

And so it begins. What the community down the road plans for all year long begins this afternoon with a parade down a tulip-lined street. The Orange City Tulip Festival is a massive undertaking that comes off only because hundreds, maybe even thousands of people don't spare volunteered energy. There are committees on committees, I'm sure. There are volunteers who not only make food, but determine who shall sell food and what kinds of food they'll sell. Scores of volunteers direct traffic, clean up after parade horses. Some wander its streets singing old folk ditties. Everywhere you look hundred-year-old Dutch costumes brighten the day. 

There's a night show that's everyone's pride-and-joy. This year Mama Mia, thought too risque for the board at Unity Christian, who wouldn't allow its wonderful theater to be used for such worldliness. 

There's an art show downtown, a flower show in the museum, street scrubbing, a high school band in white wooden shoes, little costumed kids who folk dance, all kinds of women in goofy hats.  Hungry? there's pofferjies, peppermints, and little Dutch sausages wrapped in bread--more food than you'll ever need, even cotton candy.

Once upon a time, I couldn't help thinking that a tulip festival was Walt Disney in wooden shoes. No ancestor of mine ever danced, and certainly not on down Main. What was central to the heritage of my great-grands was righteousness and holiness, sober theological reflection, all honor to God. To my ancestors, sobriety meant more than avoiding the Devil's brew; it meant making sure life was judged with pious seriousness. To them, smiling could be unseemly.

The refusal of a Christian school board to allow Mama Mia to be performed on its stage, the stage of a Christian school, may be the most authentic Tulip Festival reflection of my people in the 19th century. That decision was right out of the old days, undertaken by a school board fearful of worldliness. I'm guessing no one laughed when the vote went down; some felt, I'm sure, that they'd done the Godly thing. That entire story has more heritage in it than a whole park full of tulips. 

Once upon a time on the ship coming over, the cargo of Dutch immigrants were awakened by gun shots, a canon's roar, wild celebration on deck. It was July 4, and the ship's crew was in celebration mode. The Hollanders, unacquainted with the holiday, asked the captain to explain. He told them merrymaking was at the heart of the celebration of freedom. He told them they could contribute.

The Dutch gave celebration some thought, then asked the captain if they could sing psalms. When they could sing psalms, they told him, they were happy. 

That's the pious stock I come from. 

Maybe next year here in Orange City--and in Pella and Holland, MI--on every street corner, we should have a handful of singers offering Genevan psalms. 

That would go over big, I'm sure, like Mama Mia at the Christian school.

My wife and I have lived here for a decade now, and my view of tulip festivals has most definitely been altered. I still think of the Festival as mostly Disney, but the sheer volume of volunteerism creates a sense of community here that most small towns would covet. Today, I'm far less dour about the whole thing, less, well, unsmiling. In a way, I suppose, I'm far less of a Dutch Calvinist. 

This year, twice in fact, I'll be in a Dutch costume, riding up front in the Tulip Festival parade because the whole museum board--of which I'm part--was named Parade Marshall for the work we've been doing--all volunteer--to enhance community. 

Hard as it is for me to believe, I'll be up front, seated in a convertible, doing the wave thing, and, for sure, smiling. Can't believe it yet. 

Breng een ons bezoek   --  come on by and "pay us a visit."

Mama mia!--what an outfit.