YARMOUTH — Once the bands started marching, the floats started rolling and the fire trucks began rumbling up Main Street Friday evening, the Yarmouth Clam Festival parade garnered all the attention of the people lining the sidewalks.

But beforehand, Ray BerBerick’s simple T-shirt captivated those who saw it.

Additional Photos

The Yarmouth Fire Department’s color guard leads the annual Clam Festival parade down Main Street in Yarmouth on Friday as the three-day celebration begins. The festival raises funds for about three dozen community, church and school groups. John Ewing / Staff Photographer

Two-year-old Grace Christensen cheers the Yarmouth Clam Festival parade Friday while she’s seated atop the shoulders of her grandfather Dick Danosky of Yarmouth. More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the three-day event. John Ewing / Staff Photographer

A truck from New Gloucester Fire Deparment joins others old and new as they roll down Main Street in Yarmouth on Friday during the annual Clam Festival Parade. John Ewing / Staff Photographer

Unicyle-riding members of the Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough participate in the Yarmouth Clam Festival Parade down Main Street in Yarmouth on Friday. John Ewing / Staff Photographer

“I’m retired. You’re not,” read the blue letters on the gray shirt. “Nah. Nah. Nah. Nah. Nah.”

BerBerick, 78, who lives in New Durham, N.H., and Bradenton, Fla. — remember, he’s retired — said whenever he puts on the shirt, people want to talk to him, usually with a lot of envy in their voices.

“One lady came up and said, ‘I want that shirt, and I want it now,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘I go with it,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care.’ “

“It delights everyone every time I wear it,” BerBerick added. “It brings more comments and smiles.”

BerBerick and his “lady friend,” Paula Boyer, 72, have been coming to the festival for years because Boyer’s family holds a reunion in Yarmouth that’s always timed to coincide with the festival.

“It’s all the in-laws and outlaws,” Boyer said, adding that one year, more than 60 people were camped inside and outside of her cousin’s home in Yarmouth. This year, the crowd is a little thinner, with only about 50 relatives on hand.

BerBerick, who retired from rescue work in the Boston area in 1994 makes a point of greeting the Maine fire and rescue crews as they roll past on Main Street, and most let him know how long they have until they’ll be able to wear a shirt like his.

The clam festival is that kind of event — even though more than 100,000 people attend, many know each other, either from living in Yarmouth and nearby communities or from their regular presence at the festival.

The event raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for about three dozen community, church and school groups, like North Yarmouth Academy’s boys hockey team, where the coach learned a lesson in preparation Friday.

Eric Graham had noted that people at the festival seem to really like Whoopie Pies, which were invented in Maine, although Pennsylvanians sometimes try to grab the credit.

Graham asked his girlfriend’s mother if she would make the dessert treat to sell at the hockey team’s booth, where pulled pork sandwiches are also on sale.

So he started putting out the Whoopie Pies Friday afternoon and the entire first day’s allotment of 100 sold out — by 5 p.m., an hour before the festival officially kicked off.

“We ought to have planned that a little bit better,” Graham said, noting that his girlfriend’s mother already dropped off the second allotment of 100 — intended for sale today — but at least some of them were going to be put out Friday night.

Of course, an economist would tell Graham that he should raise the $1 price, but he doesn’t feel it would be fair to jack up the price mid-festival.

“We’ll have to evaluate that for next year,” he said. 

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com

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