When Jack Foreaker was 4 years old, his mailman gave him a bird puppet that contained a purple feather.
He bought a copy of The Purple People Eater record and practiced for his first puppet performance.
"I dumped the clothes out of a clothes hamper and slid down inside it," recalled Foreaker, now 58. "I had to flip the record player on - we didn't have a recorder back then - and I sang The Purple People Eater."
Foreaker has come a long way since his clothes hamper days. Now the puppeteer performs throughout the East Coast, mostly to raise money for Haven House, a nonprofit alcohol and drug addiction treatment center in Elkton, where he is the director.
On Saturday and Aug. 10, Foreaker will join dozens of other artists and vendors performing or showing their wares at the Havre de Grace Seafood Festival in Tydings Park.
Festival organizers say 15,000 to 18,000 people attend the event, which raises thousands of dollars for Haven House Inc.
The two-day festival began in 1980 as a fundraiser for the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum and became an annual event attended by 2,000 to 3,000 people. In the mid-1990s, Lori Maslin, an attorney who was promoting other events in Havre de Grace, took over the festival.
"The seafood festival is a shop-and-eat event," Maslin said. "It's a fun way to spend the day. It's something people can do with their family."
Combining food, art and entertainment, the event includes face painting, a car raffle and live entertainment by classic rock and blues performers. Dozens of vendors and artisans - including potters, painters, airbrush artists, soap makers, sculptors and carvers - bring their wares and demonstrate their skills.
Festival committee members try to offer new activities every year, Maslin said.
She recalled the year that vendors persuaded her to take a turn sitting in a dunking booth.
The festival is held during the Cal Ripken World Series in Aberdeen, and many young baseball players come to the event, she said. "Once I agreed to do it, people paid one of the pitchers who played in the World Series to throw balls," she said. "He probably threw 20 balls, and I got dunked about 90 percent of the time."
However, the biggest draw is the food, Maslin said, with food and art vendors coming from up and down the East Coast.
Maslin said her favorite menu item is Oreo Puffs.
