Every year around Mother’s Day weekend, John Marshall Park fills with music, food, vendors, and families for Family Fun Day, hosted by C&C Frozen Treats and Crazy Willy the Ice Cream Man in Front Royal. The event always feels a little different from the average small-town festival. There’s a bit of Louisiana woven into it: Mardi Gras beads, crawfish boiling in steaming pots, and a relaxed atmosphere that feels somewhere between a block party and a reunion.
Years ago, one of the highlights was the parade. Cars would roll through, tossing toys to kids gathered along the route. As with many traditions, the pandemic interrupted momentum, and turnout afterward just never quite recovered enough to bring the parade back. Even so, the spirit of the event still lingers around the park every year.
Before heading downtown, I spent part of the morning continuing work on the website for my phone exhibit, Restoring the Signal. The site has slowly been evolving from a bare-bones data entry page into something with more personality and visual design. It’s still very much a work in progress, but it’s beginning to feel less like data entry and more like an experience.
I decided to bring a candlestick phone with me. It’s an old upright model paired with a rotary dial base. I brought Teddy, my corgi, along. Our first stop was Stone Branch Center for the Arts. In the back hallway, there was artwork laid out low enough that Teddy could actually examine it at eye level, which amused me more than it probably should have.
Inside the gallery, I swapped out a troublesome black rotary phone from the exhibit for the candlestick phone. Now, visitors can interact with something even older than a standard rotary set. There’s something oddly satisfying about watching people instinctively understand how to use decades-old technology after only a moment of hesitation.
While I was there, I timed the long-distance sand timer that sits with the exhibit. It ran for three minutes and eleven seconds, or just slightly longer than the classic three-minute long-distance phone call people once tried to keep themselves within to avoid extra charges.
I left the black rotary phone behind in a bag at the gallery and headed toward the gazebo with Teddy.
The Gazebo is about a 3-minute walk – or 5 minutes with a dog.
The park was packed with familiar faces and local organizations. Hike Kidz had their pirate ship play structure set up again, with children climbing and pretending to board enemy vessels. Play Favorites had a giant red ball out in the parking lot, though Teddy showed absolutely no interest in chasing something too large to fit in his mouth.
As usual, Teddy attracted attention everywhere we went. One thing I always appreciate is how many people politely ask before petting him. This politeness has changed from a few years ago. I always make a point to thank them for asking first.
I picked up a strawberry drink from Petty Betty’s Treats and later bought a double-bagged grocery sack full of crawfish for twenty dollars. Carrying hot crawfish through a crowded festival while managing a corgi leash is probably not a skill that belongs on a résumé, but maybe it should be.
Teddy actually behaved fairly well throughout the day. In the past, larger dogs could easily set him off into barking fits. This time he was wearing his e-collar, though I honestly don’t know whether the improvement came from the collar itself or simply from age, maturity, and spending more time around Gwinn at home. Most of the day, he stayed calm.
There was one moment with a husky where I could feel the tension building before anything happened. Teddy began growling softly while the other dog approached to sniff him. I tried to redirect him and tapped the collar’s vibration warning while moving away, but within seconds, both dogs were barking. It all happened quickly enough that I couldn’t tell who technically started it. The husky’s owners immediately corrected their dog while Teddy and I continued on our way. Huskies seem to be Teddy’s hardest challenge for some reason. Perhaps he is jealous of their howling skills.
Eventually I found a picnic table in the pavilion behind the kids’ area and sat down with my crawfish. As I ate the tails, I tossed Teddy pieces of carrot to keep him occupied and prevent him from wandering off tugging at the leash. Nearby, another small dog spent most of the time yapping endlessly, but Teddy surprisingly ignored it completely.
Then came the inevitable mistake.
As I reached my final crawfish tail, I dropped it. Teddy moved with astonishing speed and swallowed it before I could react. Up until then, I had intentionally avoided giving him crawfish because I wasn’t sure whether it was good for dogs. After tasting one, however, carrots suddenly became far less interesting to him.
At one point, while walking around, we came across a clown on stilts juggling pins. She began tossing one to a child and encouraging them to throw it back, gradually turning the interaction into a beginner juggling lesson between the two of them. It was one of those unexpectedly wholesome moments you stumble into at community events.
I also ran into the owner of the local newspaper and mentioned my Restoring the Signal phone exhibit as a possible human-interest story. He seemed genuinely interested and asked me to send over some details.
Near the gazebo, Teddy and I watched a dance performance featuring about 20 dancers in flowing red dresses and black tops, accompanied by two men in all black. The choreography moved in sweeping synchronized patterns across the bricks. Afterward, a live band took over the gazebo stage and carried the afternoon forward with music drifting through the park.
Teddy, meanwhile, remained extremely selective about water sources. He eventually found one he approved of beside a vendor selling freeze-dried animal treats that looked like something halfway between a butcher shop and a science experiment. Teddy became especially interested in the pork hearts, so I bought him a small bag.
By then, exhaustion was beginning to set in.
We headed back to Stone Branch Center for the Arts, where I finally unclipped Teddy’s leash and collapsed into one of the comfortable chairs inside the gallery. A few familiar faces drifted in and out while the afternoon slowly passed.
During my visit, I noticed that the “Great Sniffarri” challenge organized with The Conqueror Challenges had officially been completed. Somehow that felt fitting for the day: Teddy wandering through town sniffing everything in existence while I carried crawfish and antique phone equipment between community spaces.
Eventually, we made it home, and I immediately gave in to the inevitable post-event exhaustion, taking a nap. Some days feel productive in obvious ways. Others feel valuable simply because they reconnect you with familiar places, familiar people, and the strange little traditions that make a town feel alive.
One response to “Family Fun Day, Crawfish, and Candlestick Phones”
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