A Tale of Two Vendors

Vendors old and new to the Long Island Fall Festival this year are working long hours to get ready for a very busy weekend.

 Though the festival opens Friday, vendors will operate only Saturday and Sunday at the Heckscher Park festival.

Among the crowd of vendors are both familiar and new faces. The former includes Mary Alice Meinersman, proprietor of Main Street mainstay , who has participated in the festival since its founding 18 years ago.

One of the newest vendors is Allison Whitney of New York Dirt Shirts, a mostly online company about to hit its first anniversary as a business.

 A visit to Bon Bon Chocolatiers Thursday found Meinersman, her daughter, Susannah, head candymaker Eric Lobignat and others working quickly to prepare popcorn, apples with various coatings and other delectables for sale. What they don’t bring is chocolate out of concern that it would melt.

 But there will be plenty of candy choices for young and old.

While festival days promise to be long ones, “It’s fun to do the festival every year and we look forward to it, “ Meinersman said. “We like to be where the action is,” she said. “It’s a big rush.” And while the festival crowd “comes in spurts; we’ll be very busy and then we’re waiting,” after their years at the festival, they’re prepared for that.

Her store will be open, too, for the Columbus Day parade crowds, and then moves onto a seven-day a week schedule for the fall and winter seasons.

And while Bon Bon is dipping apples in one to three layers of flavors, the New York Dirt people are dipping cotton clothing into dirt.

Whitney, whose niece, Katie Feraco is president of the company, said the clothing “starts as boring white. What we do is soak it in sodium ash, which is like a bicarbonate, and that opens up the cotton really well. We soak it in dirt, wash it and rinse.

“It might fade a little after multiple washings, but you’ll always have a nice, dirty shirt.”

Not just any dirt will do, Whitney, a 1982 graduate of Whitman, said. “It has to be dirt high in iron oxide,” which apparently is best found deep underground. “We’re always looking for good dirt,” she said.

The idea for the company came from her sister and her brother-in-law who saw similar shirts in Texas and Hawaii, and, since he works in the excavation business, knew just where to find the right dirt.

Among the items they sell, some of which carry a New York theme, are  t-shirts, shirts, hats and military caps and, of course, the ever-popular dirt bags.