From Herbie bobbleheads to ‘If I’m Lost’ stickers, the annual
festival offers a little bit of this and a little bit of that
Gilroy – Just one day after the close of the 2005 Garlic Festival, Herbie bobbleheads and other festival paraphernalia were up for auction on eBay.com. Five 2005 Herbie dolls were available, as were multiple copies of Garlic Lovers cookbooks from various years. The highest priced item up for grabs was the 25th anniversary Herbie doll selling for $39.99 and $27.
• There were more about 4,000 festival volunteers this year including first–timers and veterans. However, the most senior of them all is 92-year-old Frances Howson, the grandmother of vice president Micki Pirozzoli and information chair Mollie Botill. Howson worked as a volunteer at the poster contest tent on Saturday.
• Gilroy Garlic Festival Association director Hugh Davis said the group worked for five years trying to come up with something new for the festival before settling on a Gourmet Alley cooking demonstration. One of the discarded ideas was “A Photo with a Pyro Chef” because of the liability issues of letting volunteers too near the fire.
• Gilroy boxing star Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero took time out from his busy training schedule to enjoy the festival Sunday afternoon.
“I try to make it here when I’m in town, in between training,” Guerrero said.
The Ghost’s Garlic Festival dish of choice? The pepper steak sandwich.
• Garlic Festival guests approach the information booths with all kinds of crazy questions, however, the top three inquiries festival volunteers receive while working at the information booths: “Where is the ATM, the restrooms and the garlic ice cream,” said booth leader Lynnie Nojadera, rattling them off.
• Natalie and Anthony Albert of Visalia won a cruise to either the Bahamas or Cancun at the Garlic Festival. While dancing to Shaboom Natalie put her name in the raffle. She opted out of the hoola-hoop contest out of fear that she might win. “I was just lucky,” she said, after the couple found out they won the cruise.
• After free samples of garlic ice cream ran out early Sunday afternoon, 40-foot lines formed as patrons waited for a taste of the renowned festival staple at a booth where the cost was $3.50 for a cup of herb flavored ice cream and guests had no problem paying the price for the legendary dessert.
• New “If I’m Lost” stickers were popular this year as festival volunteers handed out hundreds of the information stickers to parents as they entered the festival. According to volunteer Guenter Bruckmann, “It’s for peace of mind,” because the child’s information is secured within a pocket on the badge. Bruckmann was unsure whether anyone had actually been returned using this procedure, however, after a young child was reunited with his father after being lost – the boy had a sticker pasted on the back of his T-shirt, “his father is convinced now, (of the sticker’s value),” Bruckmann said.
• Louis Goldich of San Diego has been attending the event since 1980, collecting pins, hats and other memorabilia along the way. His official Garlic Festival Foreign Legion hat – bought in 1981 – boasts 42 different festival pins and a name tag. His shirt bears a “stinking badge,” complete with a fresh clove of garlic tacked to it, and in his wallet he carries a yellowing card whose lamination is cracking around the edges. “(The Festival) has really changed over the years,” Goldich said. “I used to come and get … drunk, and the cops would just come along and tap you awake. Now it’s pretty mellow, a good family place..”
• Popular garlic inspired T-shirts spotted this year at the festival: Return of the Sniff, Stinkerbell, What happens at the Garlic Festival, Stays at the Garlic Festival, and May the Stink Be with You.
• While the festival is a home grown effort, many of the guests are not. Santosh Nilaver traveled 8,727 miles to visit his son who lives in California from Bangalore, India. Nilaver is believed to have come from the farthest away to attend the festival. “We all are having a great time,” he said, I like the cooking demonstrations.” Gerd and Ute Richter from Bremen, Germany love the festival so much they returned six years in row and a distance of 5,556 miles.
