After a year planning the premiere event of Greater Pittston, the Pittston Tomato Festival will wrap up tonight.
Last week was the hype week building up the festival, including spending a great deal of my time putting together the Official Tomato Festival Guide for the Times Leader Media Group.
The Times Leader, 41-years after putting together the original official guide, still stands firm and committed to the festival.
For the first two days of the event, City of Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo was over the moon with the attendance numbers.
I couldn’t make it to Thursday night, the first night of the festival, but I did manage to get there on Friday evening for an hour or so.
For the first time in a long while, I had to circle the City’s downtown for a parking spot until I finally found one behind the YMCA.
Immediately after hitting Main St., all my senses began to perk up.
The first sense of sight was on overdrive. I didn’t know where to look first.
As I got closer to the festival grounds, people were walking about Main St. and there was definitely a buzz in the air.
The next sense was that of sound and music hits you from a few different directions. The Pittston City Fire Hall was jam-packed with live music and the band Old Friends played at the bandshell.
My sense of smell was heightened with all kinds of aromas from the many food tents present at the festival.
As I approached the lower Tomato Festival lot, the first person I ran into was Mayor Lombardo. He quickly pointed out his good friend and great guy, Mayor Matt Pacifico of Altoona, PA, along with Matt’s girlfriend Sarah.
Matt and Mike have been friends for quite some time now and see each other at official mayoral events.
I met Matt a few years back covering a visit that he and other Altoona officials took a tour of the City of Pittston in 2021. When Mayor Lombardo introduced me to Mayor Pacifico, Mike told Matt that I was the good media. Since that moment, I’ve always looked forward to seeing Matt and one day I’ll get to visit his City of Altoona.
If you don’t know much about Altoona, they have approximately 1,200 less people living in the City founded in 1886 with a population of 43,071 sitting in Blair County.
Altoona is the home of Pittsburgh Pirates’ AA team the Altoona Curve and for all you roller coaster enthusiast, the City is has the world’s oldest wooden roller coast, the Leap-The-Dips at Lakemont Park and there’s even a section of the City known as Little Italy.
For fans of the gas station-convenience store chain Sheetz, Altoona is the corporate home for the over 600 locations in the Northeast.
One famous person, outside of Mayor Pacifico, was Richard T. James, the inventor of the Slinky.
Lastly, Altoona is roughly 40 miles from State College, which makes it a lot easier and faster to get to those Penn State games then it does from here.
I asked Mayor Matt if Altoona had a Tomato Festival type event in his city and he said no. I told him Mayor Mike could put a branch of the Tomato Festival at his city and they could call it the Altomato Festival featuring an Altuna and Tomato Sandwich.
You know, for a second there I think Mayor Matt might have been swayed, but at least we had a good laugh over it.
After a few chuckles with the two mayors, I moved on and took a stroll around the grounds while attempting to break though some of the long food lines.
The festival was literally wall-to-wall with people and why not? The weather was perfect, the food is always great, the entertainment is stellar, and let’s faces it; it’s the last hooray of the summer before the weather breaks toward fall and children go back to school.
If you’ve ever been to the Tomato Festival, you know you can’t walk 10-yards before you bump into a friend or a relative. It’s really quite special to see so many familiar faces in the crowd and that includes running into the Mayor of Altoona.
I may tease about Mayor Pacifico and his girlfriend Sarah coming to the festival, but there are plenty of people that plan a trip back to Greater Pittston just to take in the festival.
With the first two nights being successful, what would the festival be without some kind of weather affecting the event?
Weathering the storms is nothing new to the festival and that’s a part of nature and you may be hard pressed to remember four perfect days of the festival and that’s okay, the Tomato Festival committee has been there and done that and you just have to roll with it… and they do.
Congratulations to the Tomato Festival committee for all the work they put in for the 41st annual event.
Congrats goes out to Victory Sports Softball, led by Fred DeSanto, on returning to the Pittston Twp. Little League field where the league started in 1991.
The league played their first-ever night game and the athletes had a blast.
Quote of the Week
“It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Thought of the Week
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller
Bumper Sticker
“Don’t find fault, find a remedy: anyone can complain.” – Henry Ford
