Circa 1984: A young future Tucson Weekly contributor is wandering the Fourth Avenue Street Fair with her parents, and sees a dude with dreadlocks past his midsection, no shirt, no shoes and very threadbare shorts, staring intently at the sky. She stops and stares. "The Street Fair is when all of the hippies come out," her parents tell her, and for years, she believes that hippies only leave their homes twice a year to attend the Fourth Avenue Street Fair. Only a festival as eclectic and zany as the Street Fair would lead a small child to believe that is the only time of year certain people feel the warmth of the Tucson sun. This December's festival will be the first to celebrate a new, hipper, more modern Fourth Avenue underpass, and here's hoping the festival will continue to be wild enough to trick new generations of wide-eyed kiddies into believing that hippies only leave their houses twice a year.
Runners up:
2. Tucson Meet Yourself
3. All Souls Procession/Dia de los Muertos