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Editor Brandon D. Oliver
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Having attended the 2024 Crescent City Catfish Festival on Saturday, I can attest to the validity of that proverb.
The festival took place in Eva Lyon Park exactly five years after the last time it occurred. I attended the 2019 version of the event with former Palatka Daily News reporter Cristóbal Reyes and had such a good time that I swore I would go back the next year. If nothing else, I had to get more swamp cabbage, a food at which I turned up my nose when I first heard about it in 2013.
Like so many other popular events throughout Putnam County, the 2020 Catfish Festival was a COVID-19 casualty. When 2021 came around, it seemed too risky to plan for an event if when the date occurred, COVID cases and deaths were too numerous to safely host a large gathering.
Surely, Crescent City’s biggest springtime festival would return in 2022 or 2023, right? Sadly, there was a four-year hiatus, and some of us at the Palatka Daily News started to wonder if we’d seen the last Crescent City Catfish Festival and hadn’t known it at the time.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I heard it would make its return this year on the first weekend of April, in keeping with tradition. If you attended the festival, you know I wasn’t the only person excited about the news of its return. Droves of people from all over Putnam County and elsewhere descending on Crescent City on Saturday was a clear indicator of how fondly the community thought of the festival in its absence.
In the past, the Catfish Festival took place over two days, starting the evening of the first Friday in April, resuming the next morning and lasting into the late afternoon. The Rotary Club of Crescent City, which hosted the event, took things slow this year and made it a Saturday-only event. I have no idea how to plan such a large event, but I’m all but certain there is enough demand to necessitate the festival resuming its two-day operation.
Because I work late, I woke up and showed up to the event later than I normally would. I didn’t need to worry about missing out on the crowd, seeing as I was one of numerous people walking toward the park at 2 p.m.
There was a snag in my plans, but it is another testament to the festival’s popularity. By the time I took a few pictures and had conversations with some people, pretty much all of the food had been sold out. I was told festival volunteers had been sent on store runs to get more supplies, but that wasn’t enough to keep the food vendors stocked – unless you wanted funnel cakes. I even missed out on swamp cabbage, but I can take solace in knowing I watched volunteers harvest some of the heart of palm used to make the delicacy.
Please don’t confuse my talk of the festival running out of food with me criticizing the event. On the contrary, actually. Running out of food during a festival returning from a four-year break is one heck of a good problem. It is an indicator of how much people wanted the Catfish Festival back and is a roadmap for how to prepare for next year’s festival.
While I didn’t get my swamp cabbage or other vittles, I still had a great time in Crescent City. Like with most other festivals I attend, I bee-lined it to the vendors selling soaps and candles and practically emptied my wallet. After leaving the festival, I stopped by Palmeras to purchase snacks and drinks I can’t find elsewhere in Putnam County. Since I missed out on cabbage and gator at the festival, I stopped off at El Amigo Mexican restaurant like I usually do when I’m in the city.
I even stalked my friends, the wild peafowl that roam one of the Crescent City neighborhoods near downtown. I feel like I should apologize to the people who live there given how many times this year I’ve driven slow through that neighborhood and pointed my camera in whichever direction a peacock was showing off his vibrant dress or a peahen prowled unbothered. You can’t have those majestic, exotic birds walking out in the open and expect me to not show up and marvel.
Crescent City has always been a wonderful place, and it seems like thousands of people got to see it for themselves this weekend. It did my heart well to attend another Catfish Festival. I’m sure next year’s event will attract just as many people, if not more. And I’m even more certain its organizers will be ready for what’s to come.
Brandon D. Oliver is the editor of the Palatka Daily News. He can be reached at boliver@palatkadailynews.com