NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/tag/may-fair/page/3)
The 66th annual May Fair went off without a hitch, as a festive crowd enjoyed rides, games, food and entertainment under sunny skies on Saturday, May 9. It was also the first year fairgoers were able to experience the event under the stars, as St. Mark’s Episcopal Church presented the premiere edition of “Friday Night Lights”, which proved to be a huge hit.
The Holy Smokers—St. Mark’s men of prolonged vowels and serious barbecue—typically wait until 5 a.m. on the Thursday prior to May Fair Saturday to light the fires whose smoke will flavor their famed brisket and pork. This year, with more than 600 pounds of each, the guys—supplying their own smokers, including at least one built from scratch—lit the flames at midnight and put the first of 37 shoulders on about 90 minutes later, according to Holy Smoker and New Canaanite George Wright, a native Virginian who doubles as a coordinator with CERT, a key organization in helping May Fair run well. “We rub the first of the meat on Wednesday night and they are coming off now, most of them are off for that first turn,” Wright said Thursday afternoon from what soon will transform into the hub of the May Fair Food Court, a portable stereo playing country music nearby. “They are gong to cool down, and then we will pull them and sauce them.”
This year, visitors will enjoy the first-ever “Friday Night Lights” at the 66th annual May Fair—rides, live music and some food (pizza, burgers, dogs and ice cream “up top” on the wholly pesticide-free fairgrounds), running 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday.
For the first time ever, May Fair will open its rides to visitors on the Friday night of the weekend that the hugely popular event runs. “Friday Night Lights” will run from 5 to 9 p.m. on May 8—featuring just the rides, a performance stage and select food vendors Baskin-Robbins, Joe’s Pizza and Chicken Joe’s—and the full, cherished annual fair running about 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. the following day, said Richard DePatie, parish administrator at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. “We’ve been talking about it, off and on, for a number of years, and weather is a factor,” DePatie told NewCanaanite.com. He explained that in recent years, foul weather has caused organizers to hit pause on May Fair for periods of time on the selected Saturday, and that affects how much money can be raised (the fair benefits charities through the St.
The funds that support St. Mark’s Episcopal Church’s outreach program long have come primarily from one of New Canaan’s iconic and most treasured community events: May Fair. The 500-plus volunteer effort to organize and operate May Fair is intense and weeks-long—so much so that many New Canaanites with typically demanding schedules are excluded from participating in the celebrated fundraiser, according to members of St. Mark’s Outreach Commission. And according to one commission member, Miki Porta, many perfectly wonderful volunteer opportunities—such as giving a weekend day to help build a house somewhere in the county—are equally demanding of scarce available time.
When we heard that economist, scholar, author and New Canaan resident Stephen Roach was coming to New Canaan Library to talk about his widely discussed new book — “Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China” — we immediately sought to put some questions to Roach himself: His history and involvement in our town, entry into the field of economics (where he is a prominent figure), and a bit about the book itself. We discovered that Roach is a fixture in the chicken line at New Canaan’s well-loved and recently held May Fair, and found him frank and engaging: “In a codependent relationship, the scorned partner usually ends up in serious trouble,” Roach says of the relationship between the two nations in his book. “Call it America’s wake-up call.” Our full exchange can be found below. A senior fellow at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanly Asia, he’sspeaking at 8 a.m. next Wednesday, May 21 as part of the library’s “Distinguished Authors Series on Economics,” presented in partnership with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, Alliance of Business Professionals and Elm Street Books. Register here.