Every July Hoboken has its St. Ann's Festival, crowded and sweaty and full of muscular guys named Vito and flip flop wearing women wearing lots of jewelry named Josie.
The entertainment is quite good. Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, minus Harold, who passed away, put on a terrific show. Four old guys flying through dance steps while women practically fainted. Maybe it was the pasta or sausage and peppers.
Always there is one muscle bound guy in a revealing t-shirt trying to throw a baseball through a canvas sheet. Invariably, he doesn't break 60mph and his buxom girlfriend busts on him. Strangers strike up conversations because you're practically standing on each others feet. The smells, the crackling from the grill, the barked invitations to play this or that game, and more than anything, the zeppoles, sold from a long table by old Italian women who work endlessly, are the earmarks of this yearly event. It would be nice to see a priest or nun occasionally. But God knows a full stomach, a little beer from the beer garden, and fancy stepping singing groups amount to a certain type of mass no one wants to skip.
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