TODAY'S NEWS: And that's how they all came to be playing Charades!

For those of you not familiar with our local events, the Rose Festival is an annual civic celebration of Portlanders' ability to do things in the rain. Scheduled in early June, it always rains during Rose Festival. Always.

The Fun Center was the section of carnival-style games, rides and exhibits in a park by the Willamette River, and technically doesn't exist anymore; it's now known by corporate sponsorship. My favorite Fun Center story happened a number of years back, when the crowds and the rain wore away the grass, making the Fun Center a field of mud. People complained, so truckloads of sand were dumped on the bare areas. Unfortunately, the sand had been dredged from the river bottom, so a visit to the Fun Center that year meant slogging through wet, mucky sand that reeked like a swamp. Ah, fun times!