So last Saturday was World on the Square. You can see a photo-spread of it from the Courier-Journal Online. I’m in the second picture, looking massive but jolly in my Community Unity T-shirt.

Our long-time Food Chair retired from that post this year, and no one wanted to (nor could anyone) take her place. We hired a caterer, but she prefers to do the kitchen work and have somebody else do the meet-the-public stuff. But nobody wanted to be in charge of that. The fantastic Joy Kirchgessner volunteered to help round up donated food–raw ingredients and made dishes–from vendors, restaurants and individuals. Other people volunteered to serve the food. But nobody was in charge of the “front of the house” crew.

Then somebody opened her big fat mouth and admitted she had worked in the food area of the festival before. And suddenly, people were asking her what they should do. Fortunately, they only did that when an actual decision needed to be made that they didn’t want to make, and fortunately that was seldom. So that wasn’t a disaster, after all.

Outside was a different story. The festival was going great. Everybody was having a great time. Then a 60-mph straight-line wind descended, and wiped it out. Torrential rain blew sideways through the grounds. Tents went flying into trees. Goods, artifacts and informational material went airborn, except what was too waterlogged to fly. Within 20 minutes, a festival became an insurance fair.

But then there was a rainbow. Not just a literal one, the human one that so often follows a crisis. People checked on each other to make sure everybody was okay. People gathered up other people’s things and returned them. People cooperated and, in general, demonstrated the attitude that the festival was all about.

In the basement, where we were serving the food, we only knew about the storm from the people who came sloshing in with stories of the wreckage. Those who didn’t go home immediately were immensely glad of a dry place and hot food.

Could have been worse.

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I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies, on the subject of booze.

WRITING PROMPT: An anticipated event is interrupted by disaster, either comic or not.

MA