Editorial - July 2, 2008

By Laurie Brett

Festival season afoot

You know summer has arrived when the holidays and festivals in Essex County begin in earnest. This week we celebrated Canada Day. Next weekend is Arts at the Marina in Leamington. And, the weekend after that that is the much anticipated Essex Fun Fest!

For diehard fans, the Essex Fun Fest is the only local festival that really matters. Essex’s annual homecoming weekend draws thousands of people out of their homes and away from their jobs to celebrate the simple pleasures of relaxation and fun. Expatriates are mysteriously drawn “back home” for the festival because there’s really no better time to visit. Fun Fest weekend is a time for neighbours to renew acquaintances and long-time friends to get together, for our youngsters to mingle with the older folks and learn to appreciate that everyone, no matter your age, deserves to have a bit of fun once in awhile.

To help you navigate the four-day Fun Fest schedule, the Free Press has produced a 12-page guide that is being distributed inside this week’s newspaper. All newspapers delivered in Essex County or available at newsstands contain the guide, our third annual attempt at providing detailed information on the festival while giving local businesses the opportunity to promote their own Fun Fest specials. We hope you’ll find it useful.

We’ve also included a special link to Fun Fest information on our website. Go to essexfreepress.reinvented.net for a copy of the two-page schedule and a few additional details.

O Canada revisited

Wow! What a tremendous response from readers and local businesses!

The Canadian flags distributed in last week’s edition of the Free Press were a huge hit – so huge that we couldn’t decide which ones to photograph for this week’s front page collage.

Thank you to everyone who chose to display their national pride this week by displaying a Canadian flag.

As we wrote in this column last week, it’s the small things that build community pride and celebrating Canada Day should be one of them.