This August represents a revival for downtown Middlebury. The first few days of the month highlighted a revitalized, if truncated, five-day Festival on-the-Green and Peasant Market. That’s followed this week by signs urging all of us to attend a much-welcomed Addison County Field Days in adjacent New Haven (with its farm traditions and carnival-flare). That iconic event precedes “Foolaroo,” a day-long celebration hailing the end of four-years of construction in the downtown, and a few days later Middlebury’s New Filmmaker’s Festival.

Foolaroo — to be held Saturday, Aug. 21 — will be a fun-filled day of mirth and good humor, exuberant live performances featuring stunts and circus-like acts, music, and a movie at Town Hall Theater — all just to say, ‘Halleluiah, the construction is over; welcome to a revitalized downtown Middlebury!’

The celebrations, the music, the farm traditions, the mixing of cultures and neighbors are all desperately needed as a tonic to the trying times we endured in 2020 — as a nation, but also as tight-knit communities here in Vermont. The pandemic and extreme politics took a bigger toll on the national pysche than we might realize.

So take the family to Field Days. Come party at Foolaroo on the 21st and enjoy the scope of Middlebury’s rejuvenated downtown. And during the last week of the month come to Middlebury’s New Filmmaker’s Festival and revel in the talent and insight these movies represent and the free-flowing discussion around them.

But mainly, we have a month of summer left, so make a point to just have fun.

You deserve it. We all need it.

— Angelo Lynn