Firing of the Anvils

I know I tend to go on (and on) about where I live, but I love it here. The idiosyncrasies that make this area home for me are immeasurable. And the firing of the anvils is one of those quirky, WTF?! things that make this area so awesome.

If you've never heard of anvil firing, you're not alone. Before I moved up here, I hadn't either. It's a Southern thing, apparently. Which makes it extremely unusual to find out west.  And here, instead of replacing fireworks, we use it to signal the start of our annual County Fair Parade. I've blogged about this before, but this year, I GOT VIDEO!

This is a scaled down, "safer" version of the process, but it gives you an idea of what it would be like when people aren't gathered close to the anvils.

My favorite part of the process is when you get tourists. And they have this confuzzled look on their face.  It closely resembles the WTF you see at Heather Graham RT events. Old men haul these heavy anvils into the middle of the road. O...K... Then they do something you can't see, stack them on top of each other, and approach the anvils with a very long stick.

These same tourists are looking around, wondering what is going on, as the locals are plugging their ears.

Because this is what it sounds like when those things go off:



And even though I know the noise is coming, I still jump like a big sissy. (You'll see the camera shake. Feel free to mock me as my family did).