There’s no place like home

Friday, September 16, 2011

Dorothy said it to Toto a long, long time ago, but it still holds true today: There really is no place like home.

And nothing like Old Home Days that kicked off in Hollis on Thursday.

If you’ve never attended any part of Old Home Days, you’re in for a treat. Literally. Because there’s not just fun, there’s food, including the pies that will be entered into the apple pie contest. They’ll be cut up and sold and they’re all going to be pretty darn good.

At Old Home Days, there is something for everyone, including amusement park rides and even midway games. For $12, you get a bracelet for unlimited rides.

And who can resist Lizzy the balloon artist?

And if you’re not from around here – perhaps you’re from the city, or some suburb where they don’t have cows – then you probably haven’t heard of, or participated in, something called “Cow Pattie Bingo.”

Oh, friends, if you’ve missed this in the past, you don’t want to miss it on Saturday. We would love to describe it for you right here, right now, but decorum shall win the day and we shall not. We will, however, urge you to go. Sponsored by the Hollis/Brookline Rotary Club, Cow Pattie Bingo will be held at Waugaman Field starting at 4 p.m., but you can start buying your bingo tickets at the Rotary booth at 10 a.m.

If you’re a teenager, by the way, Old Home Days has something just for you (Mom, Dad, read this part to the kids, OK?): There’s a teen dance on Friday night from 7-10:30. Check it out.

One of our favorite parts of Old Home Days will take place Saturday from 1-2 p.m. in the Demonstration Tent: We can learn to make homemade beer. This is a truly valuable skill, as Friar Tuck once said to Robin Hood.

And of course there’s the chicken barbecue where hundreds of chickens, raised specially for the dinner, according to Old Home Days Chairman Kat McGhee, will be cooked over apple wood. And you get salad, baked beans, and watermelon. Hard to resist, isn’t it?

Really, the entire weekend is hard to resist and we hope you don’t.

Because there really is no place like home, and nothing like Old Home Days.