Once a year Bellows Falls kicks out the jams with a formidable fireworks display. The event commemorates Old Home Days which, in case you haven’t been following the history, is a celebration of the Ancestral Home. Nope, it’s not Old House day, a Bob Vila merchandizing opportunity. Old Home Days was invented at the close of the 1800s.

Conceived by clever business leaders, the holiday tried to bring back home all the lost generations taken by the great diaspora; you know, the one that followed the opening of the Ohio Valley and the rise of the cities. Fifty years of industrialization had tricked the struggling agrarian workforce into believing the world was better elsewhere. Seems to me this is not so true but some of the original motivation has been forgotten as the decades ticked on. Most of the people who settled this place [and hundreds of rural communities who celebrate Old Home Days] were and remain elsewhere, earning their fortunes selling modern widgetry or helping make other people’s fortunes doing that. The grandchildren came back but not the great grandchildren. Nevertheless, the holiday is still alive. In Bellows Falls – a village that caught and lost the industrial bug, bigtime – the means has become an end in itself. The party is now reason enough. Indeed.

The Popolo deck hasn’t been open so far this year as we finish up some construction. But we’re opening it for Old Home Days and on Saturday, August 1st the big fireworks display will wow the populace with Peonys, Crossettes, and Willows – names for the specific pyrotechnic effects we’ve grown to love. And as the Boston displays had Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, Popolo has The Bob Kendall Band.

Mr. Kendall will set up on the deck and perform a set of music while bombs burst in air and our dinner guests enjoy scrumptious cuisine and clever cocktails. There’s no charge for this wonderful evening but we ask that you make reservations because seating is limited. We think that an evening like this will be strong evidence that things are NOT better elsewhere and that it’s time to come home, whether or not you ever lived here.

Dinner reservations for the deck get you a place but we’ll only hold your seat for 15 minutes from the time of your reservation. The town closes automobile access to the village sometime around 8pm so we recommend you park before then. Mr. Kendall and the fireworks start around 9pm and explode for the better part of an hour.