Sardine Festival

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Looking for an unusual outing? Look no further than the annual Sardine festival.

Friday, October 14, 2011, my wife and I ventured over to Aberdeen, NC for the festival. We arrived as the people were setting up everything. We got our tickets for the food and listened to the live bluegrass music while we waited until they were ready to serve the food. (The food was free, but donations were welcomed*).

Knowing Hilary does not like sardines, we brought some extra food along. In line, I got 1 can of sardines and crackers for me, moonpies and diet cheerwine for both of us. The sardines were not as good as I remembered, so after eating alittle more of them, I was glad we brought extra food along with us.

Around noon, some of the past Sardine Queens arrived in 2 convertibles, attired in semi-fancy dress with strange hats. One hat was a shark, another had a crown on top of a cowboy hat, and still another had a whole lunch attached to the outside of it (pack of butter, sardines, moonpie, and mountain dew).

The new Sardine Queen arrived in a firetruck. After a speech by the new queen, we listened to some more bluegrass music. There were some t-shirt giveaways, as well as t-shirts and hats for sale. (They kept saying these “19^th Annual Sardine Festival” shirts make good Christmas gifts….hmmm).

All in all, it was a great time of good clean fun (that smelled alittle fishy).

Oh – You might be like me, wondering how something like this gets started, huh?!  I mean isn’t it strange to have an annual 3-hour festival based around sardines in a town that isn’t famous for sardines?!

Well, here’s the backstory, according to the Pilot News:

The late Randall Moss started the festival as a joke. One day, his daughter forced him to eat his sardine lunch across the highway from his office at Aberdeen Lake Park because she couldn’t stand the smell. Moss invited his friends to join him and, just like that, a festival was born.

*According to the Pilot newspaper article: Last year, the event raised $2,500, which was donated to local youth organizations, including local Boy Scouts and a local little league team.