We had a great and unexpected treat today.. Our friends Elizabeth and Bucky invited us to go with them and their son Forest and their cousins Dare, Molly , Max and Aaron to Glover for the Bread and Puppet Theatre.

Bread and Puppet is a political puppet theater which was started here in VT by Peter Schumann. The shows feature larger than life paper mache puppets and political themes from all over the world. We used to go almost every year. When the kids were small, we’d take them up there to help make masks for the pageant. The pageants used to be held one time a year.. by the time they stopped, they were huge events.. more like a grateful dead show than theater. There were  tons of folks camping, there was a parking lot vendor scene, music, etc.. Unfortunately it got out of hand and a guy there was killed. At that point they shut  down the pagent. At this point they have smaller pageants every Sunday from July to September.. Today  the place was packed..   full of every kind of person.. young, old, hippy,, establishment.. everyone therefor a good time.

Peter Schumann, the founder was busy baking the signature grainy bread for the after pageant bread and aoili munch out.

we walked up to the puppet museum . which was particularly cool because Dare and Molly’s son Aaron is a puppeteer

There were puppets lying  all over, ready for the show..

the whole place was festive.. even the privy !

As we crossed the road to the museum, I ran into my friend Paul.. he used to be the ringleader for the pageants.. but has since moved out to LA.. he was back for the summer to see his daughter and grand daughters.. it was great seeing him

The museum is a real treasure. it’s full of puppets from previous pageants and cheap art for sail. we have quite a bit of it in our house..

the puppets are all in this huge old barn.. its’ just so cool walking around in there..

the pageant was to begin at 3.. so we left the museum and headed back to the field to watch..

as I went to get our picnic, I made note of some of the better bumper stickers.. you get a sense of the folks here from just reading their bumpers.

as I walked back up to our place on the hill, it was fun looking at all the props for the coming show..

then it was show time !

sometimes the story lines were simple sometimes more complex.. this one was in favor of letting stores in Vermont sell raw milk

this was about the mars lander.. (here surrounded by one eyed martians)

this was ovulators vs the Virgina state assembly

this was about the crushing debt of a college education and the lack of jobs facing new grads (Paul played a stunning hillary clinton in this one )

here’s the famous Higgs boson .. complete with a traveling physics comedian..

“a Higgs boson tries to get into a church. The priest says.. “you can’t come in here” The HIggs boson says .. “Why not.. you can’t have mass without me 🙂 “

Don Quixote tilting against the commercial wind project at Lowel VT

something about lion and sheep. didn’t get this one..

zebras and lions .. oh my !

the interns take a bow..

then out comes 79 year old founder Perter Schumann on 10 foot stilts !!!!

the end of the big show…

i left a samstone on the hill

I ran into our friend Cavin in the band…   Cavin worked on the Voices project play and Movie. with our Max. .

post pageant back stage..

then DIane and I ducked into the forest to look around for old time sake

and.. we found a tuba.. of course ?

we visited the quiet memorial city  dedicated to bread and puppet folks who have died over the years. It was pretty moving.

then we snuck back out to watch the second part of the pageant..   this had no voice narration. .pretty abstract.. and pretty cool

a boat i think ?

all under a cool mottled sky

and finally.. after the last puppet left the field.. we all rushed over to the bread house to get fresh whole grain bread and aioli with a powerful garlic kick.. Yum.. the tradition was complete..

We all piled back in the car and made the hour and a half back to Elizabeth and Buck’ys. dropped off our friends .. and headed home. A great end of summer ritual complete.

ok. I have a ton of work to do tonight.. so I better end here.. . more tomorrow..

nite all, nite sam

-me