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  Oktoberfest is Near

  Aug 23, 2025

  Oktoberfest is both something I look forward to and resist thinking about until almost the last minute.  While I do look forward to the gathering, it’s also the acknowledgement that Summer is at an end.  Given the long, wet wait we had for Spring this year, I'm not necessarily looking for Fall to show up anytime soon.  OK, accept and move on. 

  Originating in Germany, Oktoberfest is a Fall festival celebrating the season’s harvest which blurs the period between late September and early October.  The Germans really know how to party too.  Well, ours is a little different.  I have a friend who always used to tease me (in a good natured way) saying “… that’s OK, you’re Polish anyway.”  It wasn’t always an Oktoberfest-themed gathering but it is something we’ve done all these years except during Covid.   

  Many years ago, I had a small computer and networking consulting business.  What’s now our Oktoberfest actually started out as an annual customer appreciation day picnic usually held on a Saturday.  Since I already had rented the tent, tables, and chairs for the weekend, we always had a family-oriented party on Sunday.  Over the years, customers became friends and some considered family.  The business is long gone now but the family has grown and friends remain. 

  Organizing this gathering is something Jan looks forward to doing.  After coming back to Clarks Summit in 2010, we found ourselves in a position of not knowing any of our new neighbors.  For the first Oktoberfest in our new home, she decided to include many of our immediate neighbors in addition to family and friends.  This way it would also be more of a community event.  That first event here proved extremely successful, becoming a place for many of the neighbors to either introduce themselves to each other or catch up with others that they haven’t seen for a long time.  Jan and I were totally surprised that some of the neighbors had never spoken with each other. 

   

  Since we had traditionally held the event around this time of year, the Oktoberfest theme gradually worked its way into the festivities.  Weather is always a consideration for an event like this.  So, it helps that we have a heated and air-conditioned garage to house my Pontiac GTO, allowing the event to be a rain or shine affair.  Our neighbor immediately across the street from us lets me park the GTO in their garage for the weekend.  That way, we can devote the entire space to house the event, just in case the weather doesn’t cooperate.

   

   

  The people who show up are quite the group too.  Of course, there are family and neighbors.  But there are also past work colleagues as well as friends from the local senior center where we spend a lot of time these days.  The crowd is extremely diverse with some coming from as far away as the Bethlehem, PA area.  The emphasis is on food, fun, and social activity, not topics that divide us.  It’s a safe space where everyone invited is welcome to enjoy themselves.  People can relax here because they know we won’t allow anyone to poison the experience for others. 

   

  This year is our 35^th Oktoberfest.  As I write this, I’m starting to warm up to the idea despite the rapidly approaching End of Summer.  So, we’re breaking out the decorations and planning the menu, and in a few weeks we’ll once again be singing Ein Prosit and saying “Tikki-Takka, Tikki-Takka, Oi, Oi, Oi!”

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