KNOX— Back in June 1986, this newspaper reported that the annual Pucker Street Fair had been a bit wet “but the show went on.”

A lot, maybe most, of the attendees at the Fall into Knox Festival scheduled for the town park on Sept. 10 and 11, will never have heard of the Pucker Street Fair, an old Knox tradition and Hilltown favorite event that was sponsored every year by  the Knox Volunteer Fire Company, beginning in the Knox sesquicentennial year of  1972. It left the stage a few decades ago  and since then there has been no festival in Knox.

Enter Vasilios Lefkaditis, town supervisor, and Laura Pasquini, whose family manages Patroon Land Farm on Ketcham Road in Knox, the farm owned by Pauline Williman and placed in trust by her to remain forever a farm and a source of produce for the Regional Food Bank.

Lekaditis, when he ran for office in November, said he thought a town fair needs to be revived.

“It’s a rite of passage,” he says,” for young people...where they meet friends and make memories.  And the town elders should make it happen.”

On a visit to Thacher State Park this summer, Pasquini learned the park will not be having its annual fall festival this year, leaving a big void for area craft and food vendors.

She and Lekaditis decided it was time to help the “community come back to life,” as she put it,  by resurrecting the Pucker Street Fair under, for this year anyway, the name  Fall into Knox Festival and Carnival .

They went to the town board with the idea, which gave a green-light  to the plan. Lefkaditis donated some money for the event banner, which now stretches across Altamont Road in the hamlet, and for signs.

Pasquini went to work lining up rides and 25 vendors, half of them from Knox.  Among others, Mountain Winds Farm will be there, selling its maple-syrup products; Alpaca Shack will bring its homemade clothing, and Bozen Creek Fiber Farm will present its gamut of fibers.

Five rides will include a bungee jump and whirling teacups. Pony rides will be offered too. Fox Creek Market from Berne will be offering pizza and more, and the Berne-Knox-Westerlo softball league will serve up hamburgers and hot dogs.

Oliver goes free!

A highlight of the festival will be the release of a rescued bird named Oliver back into the wild. Oliver is a great horned owl with the big piercing eyes and tufted ears that so distinguish this raptor bird.  

Oliver has spent the last five weeks at Outpost 4 Wildlife Rehabilitation Services after being discovered in a weakened state, grounded, in Duanesburg.  A strep-throat-like infection had made him unable to eat, says Eric Brown, co-owner with his wife of Outpost 4.

The first, and last, look that festival-goers will get of Oliver will be when he is released from a box, and, after a few seconds, heads aloft., and— if all goes according to plan— heads for the tree line about 50 yards away.

Outpost 4 doesn’t band its release birds, so where Oliver ends-up may never be known.

“Once they are released,” Brown jokes, “they never write…. We never hear from them again.”

He says it’s possible Oliver may head back to his old Duanesburg hunting ground or he may settle down in Knox.

Upon his arrival at Outpost 4, the big bird was thought to be female and dubbed Olive. When that mistake was discovered, it was a simple expedient to add an R.

Outpost 4 is bringing seven  to 12 birds to Fall Into Knox, all birds that reside at  its  Duanesburg facility. Several kinds of owls — including a great horned that will not head for the woods — will be displayed along with several falcons, among which will be a prairie falcon, a bird similar to  a peregrine falcon, Brown says.

But the big moment will be Oliver’s release and re-won freedom, which is  expected to happen around  noon on Saturday.  “Once he he clears,” Brown says, “he will belong to all of us again.”

The festival will take place in the town park from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m  Saturday (rides start at 1 p.m.) and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday (rides start at 11 a.m.)

Admission and parking are free. Wristbands for unlimited rides (except the bungee jump) will be $12.

Fall seasonal decorations will be provided by Patroon Land Farm.

Pasquini sees Fall into Knox as another step in “bringing Knox back to life...the town’s been asleep for 40 years.”