The rain arrived Wednesday morning, July 17 at Southport Country Fair.

So did the people. You’ll need to bring a lot more than a few drops of moisture to repress this annual event.

At Southport Town Hall, an hour into the proceedings, there were tables set out, garnished with bowls of pickles, awaiting the lunch crowd. On the menu: “Our famous” lobster roll, chicken salad roll or a hot dog, with a drink, chips and a slice of homemade cake.

On one side of the room, Nancy Harriman and her crew of volunteers herded cookies into bags and boxes. As with so many people who make the fair go, Harriman inherited her role — in her case, from her mother, Priscilla. She’s been ensuring the smooth delivery and selling of cookies for 15 years, she estimates, making sure the baking gets done and the goods arrive in fine shape. Harriman, of Newagen, said, “I ask people to start by the middle of June” with the baking, but some are already well into it by then.

“We fill freezers,” she said. “We fill shoeboxes.”

They fill tummies, too. At this point, the operation pretty much runs itself, she said. Organizers don’t know how many or what kinds of cookies will show up. The baked goods just do.

“Everybody makes what they want,” Harriman said.

Across the hall, in the kitchen, Betty Goulette reluctantly took a break from preparing the lobster roll filling to talk about her annual participation. She’s been doing it for years, although the numbers have blurred. Asked how long she’s been a part of the fair, the Southport resident laughed and shook her head. “Too long.”

It’s a lot of work for a lot of mouths. How many? Goulette wasn’t sure. Across the way, Linda Brewer filled in some details. “More than 200 last year,” she said.

That was enough chitchat. There were meals to prepare, people to feed. Goulette went back to work.

Brewer was in charge of cutting the cakes, laid out in pretty rows that made you want to step up and say, "OK, I’ll take one of everything."

For the longest time, Brewer, the former town librarian, couldn’t take part in the fair. The library is open Wednesdays. Now, since her retirement in 2018, her chance has come around again.

“A hundred years ago I used to be here,” she said. “It’s good to be back.”

Speaking of a hundred years ago ...

Down the road a bit, at Southport United Methodist Church, fair attendees were picking through all sorts of old and discovered treasures — “things you didn’t know you needed,” the fair had advertised — that were set out on tables and church pews: Antique dish sets, old looking glasses, nautical equipment, and books in enough varieties to satisfy the broadest-minded bibliophile.

All in all, it was a fine day at the fair. Back at the town hall, Evelyn Sherman and Jean Thompson, who were selling plants, summed up the spirit of the thing. In Southport, it’s generational.

“We both had mothers who slipped plants,” Thompson said.

And so it is that they, too, slip plants. Sherman even slipped one to a fair visitor who noted he tends to unintentionally murder plants.

“You can’t kill this, unless you over-water it," she said.

The plant is on the windowsill now. We’ll see.