There was so much to do at the Taste of Portage on Saturday, it was a wonder anyone found the time to eat.

Take 20-month-old Taiya Shafer, for instance. She staked out a spot at a table in the kids' activity tent, and there she would stay, watching a mixture of seeds percolate through a plastic machine as she spooned the substance into the machine's hopper.

"We haven't quite made it all the way around to all the other events," said Taiya's mother, Niki Shafer of Baraboo. "She doesn't want to leave here yet, so we're going to be here awhile."

Shafer, who will soon start a new job as a writing teacher at Portage Junior High School, said she came to Taste of Portage to get to know the community better.

The opportunities to get to know Portage may have begun at the food court, where Shafer found time to get a brat and a burger, but they didn't end there.

The newly refurbished Cook Street was closed to automotive traffic so pedestrians could walk up and down the middle of the road, pausing now and then to look at various arts and crafts booths.

On DeWitt Street, more than 60 vintage vehicles were in display, and dozens of car aficionados studied them - inside, outside and under the hood - before voting on the winners in 20 different classes.

Jeff Omen of Beaver Dam sat by his entry - a 1976 Cadillac hearse that he said he found in a corn field near Plainfield, and which he refurbished and christened "The Meat Wagon."

But spectators weren't just looking at the 1920s coffin in the back (Omen said he bought it from a funeral home), nor were they looking at the plastic skeletons (purchased from a big-box home improvement store), one in the driver's seat and one riding shotgun.

All eyes were on the emperor scorpion that crawled on Omen's hands without stinging him, though the poisonous stinger in the creature's tail was, according to Omen, completely functional.

"It's a creepy pet for a creepy car," he said.

Among those circulating in the car show, and throughout the Taste of Portage venues, were representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, all wearing identification tags and navy blue FEMA polo shirts.

FEMA representative Richard Griffin, who lives in Florida, and Charlie Cooper, of Pennsylvania, took a break so each could partake of a barbecue pork sandwich.

Griffin said people who talked to him didn't ask for FEMA assistance, but praised the help the agency had already given in the area.

But if people did seek help with recovery from this summer's windstorms and floods, he said, he'd direct them to the FEMA Web site, www.fema.gov, or its toll-free phone number, (800) 621-3362, so they could register with the agency - a pre-requisite for most recovery assistance, even help that comes from entities other than FEMA. The registration deadline is Sept. 15.

If people recognize FEMA officials at community events such as the Taste of Portage, Cooper said, "then that's good, that's good. We don't want people to think FEMA has left the area."

Just across Market Square, however, Sasha Mashchemko, 11, of Madison, wasn't thinking about floods or other disasters. She was concentrating on getting her serve in.

Sasha and her cousin, Meghan Maurer, 9, of Columbus, were playing virtual tennis on one of the four 40-inch screens where free Nintendo Wii games had been set up - mainly to attract people in Sasha and Meghan's age group to the Taste of Portage.

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah!" Sasha exclaimed, as she wielded the handheld Wii control mechanism like a tennis racket to smash the virtual ball into the virtual opponent's virtual court.

"It's kind of like playing a real game of tennis," Meghan observed.

"But I like real tennis better, because you can see it better," said Sasha, who noted that the sunshine coming in through the tent's open sides made the images on the screen fainter than she would have liked.

That didn't seem to bother 20-year-old Josh Brodeur of Poynette, whose Wii virtual guitar performance featured the Kiss classic "I Want to Rock ‘n' Roll All Night (and Party Every Day)."

"You have to get the notes right, and make it through the song without getting booed off the stage," he said.

Brodeur said he'd never before been to the Taste of Portage, but came this year because "I'd heard of it a long time, it's nice out and I'm just looking at everything there is to see."

"But this," he added, pointing to the guitar, "is a definite bonus."

When his turn was over, Brodeur handed over the ersatz guitar to another player, saying, "It's your turn. It's all you. I've played my song."

Besides, it was time to eat.

 

ljerde@capitalnewspapers.com

745-3587