Commentary by Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



There’s no reason why any of our readers should having boring weekends during the month of April.

If you look in our community calendar, you’ll notice there’s plenty to do next month. For example, the Brookside Greenway Festival (read all about it on the front page) and the seventh-annual Magnolia Festival will both be held next month.

This is actually the second year of the Brookside Greenway Festival. Organizers had a great turnout last year, so it only makes sense that they do it again. The April 5 festival will feature live entertainment, tons of food and crafts vendors and of course, the opportunity to enjoy improvements the town of Brookside has made to Five Mile Creek.

Brookside is just a wee bit west of Gardendale, so it’s not like you’d be spending all day in the car. I had a great time at last year’s event, and I plan on being at this year’s festival as well.

The second event I’m going to recommend to you is actually not in our coverage area, but I intend on being there. After all, an opportunity to go to Moulton’s “Chicken and Egg Festival” really seems too good to pass up.

With promises of contests like the egg in spoon contest or the chicken wing eating contest or the Col. Sanders look-a-like contest, there’s no way I wasn’t going to be there. Then on top of everything else, they added live entertainment in the form of Pure Prairie League (singers of 1970s country-rock song, “Amie”) and Webb Wilder (dorky, minimally famous rock band). It was then I was sold on the “Chicken and Egg Festival.”

And of course, I can’t leave out the Magnolia Festival. Formerly the “Jugtown Jubilee,” the Magnolia Festival has been a staple in the community for years and years. This year’s festival, to be held April 19 at the Gardendale Civic Center, will feature a business expo, live entertainment, a wide variety of food, carnival rides, inflatables and a classic car show. Even better, the festival is all for a great cause — scholarships for senior students in north Jefferson County.

If you have any energy left after the Magnolia Festival, skip on down to Bessemer for the Alabama Record Collector Association’s 27th CD and record show, held April 18-19 at the Bessemer Civic Center. I’ll be there looking through cardboard boxes and milk crates full of records, in search of Pure Prairie League and Webb Wilder albums.

Whether you take advantage of any of the events April has to offer is of course, up to you. I’ll be at some, most or all of these events. Maybe I’ll see you there.