When you mention the word "festival,"

it conjures up totally different ideas in the minds of men and women.

For most women, the pulse quickens,

the pupils dilate and they have dreams and visions of the perfect, hand-crafted

knickknack.

For most men, even the near-perfect

sugar high produced by a combination of funnel cake and cotton candy still

can't make the festival an attractive draw. Festivals are simply made

for women.

The definition for "festival"

a periodic season or program of cultural events or entertainment indicates,

though, that this is going to be a regular event on my family calendar,

like it or not. In this rough, though, I have found a diamond. Or at least,

I found a chunk of granite: The Rock Lady of Fayette.

She has been an established

fixture on the Fayette County festival circuit for over a decade. She

makes Pet Rocks. Yep, that's right, the '70s curiosity that some people

called a stone-cold scam. I mean, who in their right mind would ever pay

money for a rock that someone claimed was a lovable, huggable pet? Hard-earned

cash should be used for more important things, like bottled water or vintage

Kenny G albums.

But, I'm not talking about

a pet rock here. I'm talking about the pet rock experience. Flora Perkins

is the Rock Lady of Fayette. This is a name I gave to her, because frankly,

J. Lo was taken.

Flora will be 90 years old

next April. She makes up the pet rocks, which are a stone with glued-on

fur and paws painted on the underside. Pink paws indicate a "girl"

rock, blue means a "boy."

But that is just the beginning.

You can also purchase a fuzzy family of teeny rocks in a film canister,

a pet rock merry-go-round and a pet rock Ferris wheel. There are pet rock

houses, beds, furniture. When you purchase your pet rock, Flora always

gives you a blanket and a pillow because "your pet rock can get cold

at night."

My daughter's first-grade teacher

put us on the Pet Rock lady right before the Shakerag Festival in Peachtree

City, telling her about this exciting mainstay of the festival circuit.

Then it dawned on me. This is all a plot.

To look at Flora you would

think that she was simply a fascinating elderly woman with stories to

tell and yarns to weave. But deeper, on introspection, this might be a

more complex financial machine. Could the Rock Lady not have us all bamboozled?

Though my wife tells me I am

crazy, I think maybe this is all a very wisely engineered symphony of

salesmanship. It has all the elements. Flora is the perfect vendor of

wares. She is knowledgeable of the marketplace and she has a monopoly

on a much-sought-after product. It doesn't matter that the buyers are

rock-obsessed preschoolers and first graders. Also, she has a network

of personnel advertising her locations as she wittingly moves from venue

to venue.

It is virus-like in way it

spreads, more and more people telling of her rocks. And horror of horrors,

who is really making these pet rocks? Has she partnered with Kathy Lee

Gifford only to have preschoolers and first graders working in a Bangladesh

sweatshop, producing these pale imitations of the original American genius?

Forget about the Government

versus Microsoft and Bill Gates. The Rock Lady of Fayette should be the

real target of antitrust authorities. Others would argue our very way

of festival life could be put in jeopardy should we target Flora. The

whole economic puzzle of weekend craft sales could come crashing down,

should this piece be removed.

Well, I guess I could be wrong.

Maybe Flora is just what she seems: a dear, old, intriguing lady ... who

wears a Rolex and drives a Porsche.

[Visit Billy Murphy on the

Internet at https://ebilly.net.]