Strawberry Festival

Every year Plant City, Florida, has a Strawberry Festival where, of course, the main attraction is the strawberries -- strawberries to buy, strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries to name a few ways to entice the buyer to try the delicious fruit. But, really, the festival is like a fair excluding the animals. I am not particularly fond of fairs because when I was young I was a 4-Her and practically lived at the fair during that time. So, I guess you could say I have had my fill.

But, the Strawberry Festival has really good entertainment, and days of it. Friends and I pick one entertainer and go, braving the crowds and junk food. Corn dogs, pizza, fried pickles, elephant ears, cinnamon rolls, all the food that is "bad" for you but tastes so good. This year, we picked the Golden Boys -- Frankie Avalon, Fabian, and Bobby Rydell. The place was packed.

First to the stage (after the introductions) was Bobby Rydell. Basically, he sung a medley of his tunes and I could tell he had not been performing that much recently. I was right with my estimation because after a search on Bobby Rydell, he has had major health issues in the past few years. Yet, he continues to perform for us baby boomers. It was fun to hear "Sway" again and "Wildwood Days".

Next to the stage was Fabian. The heartthrob of the 50s and 60s has aged with the rest of us

Could not get that close, but Fabian is shown on the screen. He came out with a red shirt flowing in the breeze.




I thought his performance was weak, but I am no critic. He and Bobby Rydell have been performing with Frankie Avalon under the title of Golden Boys for the past 20 years.

And then there was what I will term the headliner, Frankie Avalon. He was strong and quite the entertainer. He talked about him and Annette in all the Beach movies, and he sang tons of songs including "Beauty School Dropout" and "Venus". The crowd was singing with him, bringing back great memories to another time in our lives.

He talked about his wife and having 8 children in 10 years. He said he was busy! One of his sons was playing the drums as part of band. He said that his son was inspired by Kiss to play the drums! Different music than his father, but he was a good, very good drummer. The other person who was in the band was Edan Everly, the son of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers, and Frankie Avalon introduced him to do a solo on the guitar.

This is Edan performing a solo on his guitar. We heard "All I Have to Do is Dream" and "Bye Bye Love". Of course, we sang along.









Frankie Avalon may be 75 but you would never know it. He is a force you would want to see. And it was a great time. He still looks good -- great, and his voice is strong.

He ended the show with an iconic melody -- M I C see you real soon, K E Y why, because we love you...

Then there was going home, when I got lost (still don't know Florida roads) because I did not want to drive on the interstate during rush hour. Eventually, we made it home, filled with a good day and exhausted from the day.

Until tomorrow.... have a good day!