Prior Engagements

I’ll try to make it, if I can just get to my keys…

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“I’m pretty sure I’m busy that day,” she replied, nervously twisting strands of her long hair around an index finger while casting her eyes about the room, searching for the quickest means of escape from the mounting flood of awkwardness that threatened to drown them both.

“But I haven’t even told you what day yet,” he pleaded, exasperation mounting, a wave of anxiety working its way up, up, up, from the deepest part of his fragile soul to the cold and blinding light of humiliation.

Greetings, Fellow Catfish Enthusiasts,

It has come to our attention that some of our less adventurous supporters may be questioning last Saturday’s decision by your Dear Chairman to select and publish a date for the 14th Annual Denver Catfish Festival within the jovial midst of a local brew fest.  

Please understand that your Chairman had been swept away in a malt and barley wave of cosmic, communal YES with tens of dozens of fellow beer likers, and decisions had to be made with the lightning speed of a catfish in pursuit of prey.  (Or grain, as the case may be with our farm-raised variety.)    

Thus, we have our date with Catfish Destiny and are beyond excited to share a splendid display of deep-fried deliciousness with our fellow Catfish devotees.

Also, today we would be remiss to continue with this pointless, rambling post without fondly remembering one of the exalted patron saints of the Denver Catfish Festival on what would have been his 80th birthday:

Well spoken, sir.  

And so it goes with this year’s Denver Catfish Festival.  We’ve heard from many of our usual festivalgoers (even a Haiku Champion or two) that 7/29/17 is a date that just doesn’t work, due to goings on in Moab or Carbondale or Sante Fe or Chicago or the oft-cited “wedding out of town,” or for Soccer or Sawyer Brown (gross) or even for having to pilot an Airbus A310 from Denver to Milwaukee and back.

Wait…Soccer?  Don’t kids play soccer like 300 days a year?  In the years that follow, will you look back at this one, crucial game on 7/29/17 as the moment that pushed the needle over to a full-ride scholarship and acceptance to the USA World Cup team?  

And Piloting a jet?  Don’t those things basically fly themselves now?

But fret not, absentees; we shall raise a full glass and a golden fillet to you and yours, the no-shows whose souls must be trampled in the name of triumphant, beautiful, perfectly seasoned and prepared Fried Catfish and Hush Puppies.

And as for those festive, fortunate folks who have presented no viable excuses otherwise, we’ll see you at the Fourteenth Annual Denver Catfish Festival!

Sincerely,

Joe T., Chmn.