Converse in the North Cascades: Holiday Weekend at Marblemount Community Hall 2013

The Marblemount Community Hall usually holds a holiday breakfast and bazaar the first weekend of December every year. The way the calendar worked this year, the first weekend of December was right after Thanksgiving. This made for a lot of activity at the hall in a few short days.

Last week several members stayed until about 11 o’clock at night to put some final coats of wax on the floor for the upcoming festivities.

There was a free Thanksgiving community dinner put on by some local ladies at the hall the day before Thanksgiving. I was only there a short while, but from my observation while I was there the dinner was well attended. There was a lot of effort put into preparing and serving that meal and cleaning up afterward.

Saturday we put up the Marblemount Christmas tree in town in front of the Que Car Barbeque. The Robert, the owner of the Barbeque and Sam at Shim Shell were gracious enough to allow us to put the tree up there.

It was my job this year to procure the tree. On Friday I cut the tree from under the City Light power lines at the Stump Farm and loaded it in the farm pickup so everything would be ready to go first thing Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. I couldn’t find the concrete base usually used to set up the tree at the Community Hall so I made one out of some old 4x6 timbers in case we couldn’t locate the regular base.

Saturday morning I was running a little late. I loaded all the tools I thought would be needed into the farm pickup and hopped in and promptly discovered that the clutch release, which I thought I had fixed a couple of weeks ago by replacing the master cylinder, wasn’t working. There was not time to fiddle with it and no other means of transport at hand for the tree so I nursed the pickup into town in second gear.

After unloading the tree, we determined that the stand I had built would probably not be adequate to keep the tree standing if the wind blew very hard so a search was launched to find the regular tree base. It was located in short order. It was half buried in the weeds and I had overlooked it, thinking it was a part of something else. The trouble now was that we couldn’t move it without a machine. In the original plan, I was going to bring the farm tractor to move it. So I nursed the farm pickup back home in second gear, fired up the tractor and drove it to town.

Of course the front tires were low on the tractor plus the tractor was not originally supposed to have a loader on it so it already carries more weight over the front wheels than it was designed to. I drove past the hall to Chom’s Chevron to put air in the tires because if I picked up the tree base with the front tires too low it would be running on the rims. After airing up the tires, we managed to get the tree base dug out of the weeds and moved into position without any further ado or delays.

Setting up the tree and getting it decorated went quite smoothly and we got it all done without anyone getting hurt. This tree won’t be winning any awards from Martha Stewart, or anyone else for that matter, but all in all, I don’t think it is too bad for five guys on a rainy Saturday morning.

The ladies decorate the hall Saturday evening after a birthday party celebration there. I missed that work party.

I would guess the attendance at the bazaar was about average. It is always less well attended than the salmon barbeque which happens in the summer when the pass is open and being used by a lot of people. This year the pass was open in the morning but it closed at around 3:00 in the afternoon. This probably didn’t have much effect on attendance at the bazaar because traffic over the pass dwindled to almost nothing after hunting season this year, as it does most years so there wasn’t that much traffic to begin with.

It was also really rainy and blustery which tends to keep people at home as well. The worst year of attendance at the bazaar that I have ever seen was when it snowed about 6 inches. Almost nobody came that year. Ironic, considering it is a holiday bazaar featuring Christmas.

There was an early morning rush of people for breakfast then a smaller rush around noon when Santa came.

The tree lighting went off without a hitch. Santa toured town in the fire engine and then presided over the tree lighting. He then found out what the kids in attendance wanted for Christmas.

All in all I think everything went well. It would have been great to have big crowds but it was nice anyway. It is too early to know how much, if anything, was earned for the upkeep of the Community Hall. My contribution to the whole process was pretty minimal compared to other folks who volunteered their time this weekend. I put in a couple of hours on the tree and a little time spent helping clean up after the bazaar. I saw others put in a lot more time and effort in decorating, cooking, cleaning and staffing counters. I never cease to be impressed by the people who give so much of their time and energy for the benefit of the community.