COLUMBIA, Calif. -- This Gold Rush community holds its fifth annual Poison Oak Festival on Sunday, but sponsors are not feeling up to scratch because it will be the second such gathering in California in recent weeks.
It seems that the Chamber of Commerce in the Sonoma County community of Forestville had a similar salute to the itch-causing weed last month.
Bluegrass fiddle player Tom Wentworth Wednesday called Forestville's party an 'upstart imitation' and Helen Price, 50, lodged a more serious charge when she asserted that ample quantities of imitation poison oak had been detected at the Forestville festival.
'That's worse than swearing in front of the pope,' said Price, a frequent prize winner at Columbia who attributes her youthful appearance to occasionally 'wallowing' in genuine poison oak near her home.
Forestville officials swore they had come up with the idea on their own and did not know about Columbia's traditional rites for poison oak.
Columbia officials said that the recent rash of California forest fires had cut the local poison oak crop by about a fifth, but there there was still plenty left for contest entries.
Competition at the Columbia festival includes best poison oak arrangement, best bonsai poison oak, most potent looking leaves and biggest poison oak branch.
