Bay City's Mole Day 2016

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Saturday January 30th at 11AM, Bay City held it's "Mole Day" party. Every year, Bay City takes a day to honor the moles of the Department of Public Works, the workers of Linden Lab whom built Bay City and various other projects over the years.

In the past, the event was held on February 2, Groundhog Day, every year. But this time the date was set on the weekend a few days before. People were invited to the North Channel Fairgrounds and grab a Mole Day T-shirt, or just come as they were.

For the first hour, the music was provided live by singer Maximillion Kleene. Those wishing to send money his way had to send it to his cow-shaped tip jar, or "tip his cow."

And a number of the moles showed up. Some such as Frost Mole hardly looked the part of the short furry avatars with helmets moles often are shown as.

Dyna Mole was looking dynamite on the dance floor.

We had an "Ancient Mole," though I didn't look to see how old he was.

And yes, there was a "Garden Mole."

Leading Bay City resident, Marianne McCann, was also there.

At 12 Noon, DJ GoSpeed Racer took over the stage, playing various tunes. This included "I Am A Mole" by "The Southlanders." GoSpeed commented, "I play it once a year just for this occasion." Garden Mole mused, "My mum used to sing it to me when I were a little kid, ohhh way back in the day."

When GoSpeed was playing "Jump in the Line" by Harry Belafonte, Marianne shouted "Conga time!" And begining with the DJ, they began jumping in the line, with Kenny Luckless just behind her. "Kenny is so soft an fluffy!" she commented.

Frost Mole provided this animated picture of the conga, "Cha-cha!"

One Linden showed up briefly, Shaman Linden. But as soon as some of us noticed her, she had to leave, "I'm going to get going. Thanks for the fun afternoon!"

There were a couple people whom attempted some minor trolling, but the crowd just laughed them off.

After the event, Marianne would tell me, "Pretty successful, I would say. We maxed out at 51 avatars, including one Linden and several Moles. Things went pretty smoothly throughout, aside from a couple minor trolling incidents. ... On the plus side, the crowd knows how to handle 'em."

And so another Mole Day came and went in Bay City. But there will be other big events there later in the year, such as their anniversary parade in May.

Bixyl Shuftan