BY RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WAYNESVILLE -- The smell assaults the village days before the onslaught of 200,000 visitors. Like the tracks of sticky fingers in a spotless kitchen, the pungency of cooked cabbage can't be avoided in these final hours before the annual Sauerkraut Festival.
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The Wayne Township Fire Department has a live camera set on Main Street that will feed every 20 minutes to its Web site, www.interaxs.net/pub/wtfd/livecam.htm |
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IF YOU GO
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What: Ohio Sauerkraut Festival.
When: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
Where:Downtown Waynesville.
Parking: Available along some streets. Organizers suggest parking at Waynesville High School and taking the free shuttle service to Main Street.
Directions: Waynesville is near the intersection of Ohio 73 and U.S. 42. Police Chief Allen Carter suggests festivalgoers look for alternate routes. Traffic on Ohio 73 tends to back up, with up to two-hour waits throughout the weekend.
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After 29 years, the festival has become an autumn icon. Planning is as well-choreographed as a dance number with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with organizers poring over the tried-and-true lists:
60 Port-a-pots. Check. 400 craft booths, 30 food stations. Check.
More than 300 volunteers. Thousands of dollars for clubs and churches. And 11,000 pounds of the star of the show, sauerkraut.
"We've just about got it down to a science." said Pam Allen, executive director of the Waynesville Area Chamber of Commerce, the festival's sponsor. "We're about ready."
With military precision, volunteers and groups throughout the village made the final preparations this week for the festival's invasion.
In the basement of Saint Augustine Catholic Church, extension cords run to 30 roaster ovens. Inside each, 21 cabbage rolls are laid side-by-side like soldiers in formation. Each cabbage roll cooks for about three hours, until it reaches 180 degrees.
It's a hot job, and steam glistens on the brow of volunteer Betty Turvy.
"If I'd thought about it, I wouldn't have taken a shower this morning," she laughs.
Volunteering is part of Mrs. Turvy's tithing of her time and a way to give back to the church that helps put her children through school.
The $25,000 or so Saint Augustine expects to raise selling cabbage rolls at $3 apiece this weekend goes for Catholic education. In Mrs. Turvy's case, it means 7-year-old Mary and 6-year-old Jimmy attend Catholic schools for half price. The church pays the other half of the tuition.
In the multistep journey to make 11,000 cabbage rolls, each of the 20 or so volunteers Wednesday morning has a specific task. Terry Kronenberger pulls heads of cabbage out of boiling water and separates the leaves one by one.
In the kitchen, volunteers massage a batch of cabbage roll stuffing, mixing together 25 pounds of ground beef, 14 cups of rice, two dozen eggs, five pounds of onions, salt, pepper, garlic and parsley. Another group takes an ice-cream scoop of stuffing, plops it on a single cabbage leaf and rolls it up like a burrito.
Workers started Sunday and continued up to 14 hours a day to prepare the cabbage rolls. Still, the project's chairman, Dave Albers, expects they'll run out.
The smell, of course, will linger a little longer. Sunday morning worship will feature a mixture of sauerkraut, candles and incense.
For a village police department of four full-time and 15 reserve officers, this weekend could be a nightmare. The officers will start Saturday and Sunday about 6 a.m. and head for home after the last straggling tourists, sometimes as late as midnight.
"But after so many years of doing it, it's no big deal anymore," Police Chief Allen Carter said. Still, "it's taken years of trial and error to get the right system down."
From 16 years of experience, he knows it's better for his officers to travel on bicycles and motorcycles through the village. A car could get stuck in traffic for hours. Chief Carter plans to tool up and down the streets in a four-wheeler borrowed from Caesar Creek State Park.
The chief plans which streets to barricade, how to move traffic and where to put about 500 "no parking" signs. A few years ago, the department towed or ticketed 200 cars. Last year, it was down to 12.
"Either the word's gotten out or we catch 'em soon enough," Chief Carter said. "Either way, it's best for both parties."
About half the stores that line Main Street will shut this weekend. Some of the smaller shops can't handle the crowds; other store owners figure people are looking for crafts, not antiques.
But for the half that stay open, the cash registers won't stop ringing.
Last year, on Sauerkraut Saturday alone, Ellen Barlett's store, My Favorite Shop, made $5,000 in sales.
"Some months, $5,000 would be a good month," she said.
Mrs. Barlett shops half a year in advance of the festival to find unusual items to catch the eye of shoppers bombarded with hundreds of options. In these final harried days, she checks to make sure each item is properly priced and that she has plenty of back-up stock to refill the shelves.
"Every shop owner has the same sort of look on their face," Mrs. Barlett said. "It's coming. We have to be prepared."
The 25 people on the Sauerkraut Festival Committee started meeting in February. The 400 slots for craft booths were taken by spring. Calls to the Chamber of Commerce for directions and information began in September. Now, they number 40 a day.
This week, planning for the festival came down to the finishing touches: Wiping the windows and cleaning the office. Double-checking orders and receipts kept in Executive Director Mrs. Allen's 2-inch thick festival file. Mapping out where the vendors from 22 states will sell their wares. And making sure each booth meets the festival's criteria: only handmade crafts, no imports or commercially-made items.
"If somebody brings Beanie Babies, they're out of here," Mrs. Allen said.
Local restaurant, Der Dutchman, is cooking up sauerkraut brownies, pies and cookies the Chamber will offer at its baked goods booth. Mrs. Allen swears that despite the unappetizing sound of a sauerkraut pie, it tastes good -- kind of like coconut creme.
For the Chamber and 30 or so clubs, churches and charities, this weekend is the one of the biggest fund raisers of the year. Some organizations base their entire budget on the money made during the Sauerkraut festival weekend.
Festival rules dictate that only local organizations can set up food booths. That's because even after 29 years and 200,000 visitors, the two-day event still is first and foremost for the village and its people.
At least most of the people.
A handful of residents leave Waynesville for the weekend to avoid the crowds. Those who stay behind know the drill: Shop and run errands before the festival starts; otherwise, a quick trip for milk could take a couple of hours.
"You're basically stranded the whole weekend," resident Ethel Russell said. "You don't try to drive unless it's an emergency."
By Monday, a visitor to Waynesville won't know it was deluged with 200,000 festival-goers. The street sweeper will have cleaned the streets of napkins, pop cans and all the other crumbs of a festival. The vendors will have packed their booths and moved on to another event. And the clubs and organizations will have counted the money and started planning for next year.
Perhaps the only sign of the weekend will be on the door of the Waynesville Area Chamber of Commerce: "Closed. Recuperating from the Sauerkraut Festival."
