I head on down to Franklin Street to clog my arteries every October. I don’t even know what it is about the West Side Nut Club’s Fall Festival that is so appealing – it just is.

Having resided in Evansville for all 19 years of my life, it isn’t as if the festival is at all foreign to me. Truth be told, I’ve been going there pretty consistently since middle school. So what is it then?

I mean, technically, I could eat unhealthy food and bathe in cigarette smoke any day of the year. So why do I get so worked up about a street festival that permits me to do such?

I think it’s due, in part, to a sense of community that the Fall Festival brings.

Evansville often seems like a very disjointed city to me. It’s too small to feel very urban and too big to feel suburban – an awkward middle ground between the two.

Annual events such as Race For The Cure help alleviate this lack of community, but not to the extent that the Fall Festival does.

I think we may also be attracted to the scale and scope of the event. I mean, it’s a pretty big deal – said to be second to Mardi Gras as the biggest street festival in the United States.

This is really one of the few times that Evansville “gets on the map,” so obviously we’re excited about it! (Which, given our obesity statistics, probably doesn’t look all that great on our part…)

But with all things considered, I know the thing that I enjoy most about the Fall Festival is the weather, assuming it cooperates.

In September and October, the weather is absolutely gorgeous in southern Indiana, making it the perfect time of year to host the event – unlike the Vanderburgh County 4H Fair, which occurs in the miserable, overbearing heat of summer.

Then again, I don’t know if it matters why the Fall Festival is so appealing. Maybe that’s the point.

This sort of escapism is something we all partake in when life gets monotonous. Why not throw in some fried oreos while we’re at it?