We were all drawn to the same spot in a parking lot on the final day of the Autumn Jubilee at Dan Nicholas Park on Sunday afternoon.

The crowd was surprisingly thin for an afternoon of relative dry weather following a much wetter day on Saturday. Nonetheless, a select few individuals attending Autumn Jubilee on Sunday were about to watch the metaphorical planets line up in front of our eyes.

Let me set the stage for what was about to happen. The large parking lot next to the playground and what I call the “main entrance” to the park had been turned into a massive food court with rows upon rows of crafts booths. One could pick up anything from a bottle of homemade goat’s milk body lotion or a wooden duck push toy on a stick (personal favorite) all the way up to entertaining thoughts of actually buying the flat-black Dodge Challenger that Gerry Wood had sitting in the corner.

Right between the Hoff’s Grill booth and Gerry Wood’s Challenger is the spot where the tractors pulling hay-lined trailers picked up and dropped off people shuttling between the new temporary parking area and the festival.

There was frequently a line of people waiting for the next hayride. This is where bubble man Steve Langley lingered for a few minutes and entertained the masses.

With the sounds of Darrell Harwood singing “Friends in Low Places” coming from behind a row of tall leland cyprus trees, Langley dipped his oversized bubble wand into a flat round tray of some unknown concoction. After raising the long wand over his head, he gently pushed the business end of the wand through the muggy still air until it created a trio of huge bubbles the size of award-winning prize pumpkins.

The large undulating orbs hung in the air with upside-down and backward reflections of the surrounding trees in a shimmering, swirling rainbow of colors. Then before some of the more leggy children could raise their pointer finger to meet the outer skin of the motherships, Langley began to wave his long wand quickly back and forth and created a fleet of lesser orbs about the size of a plum that filled the whole area.

The handful of children nearby gave out collective squeals of delight as they all rushed in. One small voice excitably cheered two words: “Yea, bubbles!” as she answered the screams that seemed to be a translated as, “Get over here and help us catch these bubbles.”

Tim Belk used his cellphone to capture the scene as his 2-year-old daughter, Adaylynn, joined the quest to stop the advance of bubbles that were fanning out toward the pork chop booth and the flat-black Dodge Challenger. Adaylynn gave chase of a single bubble for a good distance, but it seemed to stay just out of her reach.

Happily, there appeared to be no collisions between the children who were running about in all directions. While the young children tried their best to grab the bubbles with their hands, some of the older children appeared to be attempting to bite the bubbles as if they were made of candy.

A few adults who were passing through the area on their way to other parts of the festival bobbed and weaved their heads to avoid the bubbles altogether. One lady passing by offered up, “You don’t want one of those in your eye” as she cleared the bubble field and continued on.

And then as with any really good magical moment, while the last of the bubbles were ending their short lives, bubble man Steve Langley picked up his liquid concoction and his wand and disappeared from the area unnoticed.

It was perfect.