NATCHEZ — When the Natchez Fire Department truck showed up on Oak Street, children from blocks away came running.

The children at the Minorville Jubilee knew what they were going to get — “Soaking wet,” Richard Jones, 7, said.

“I love to get wet and play with my friends,” said Jones, who didn’t know all of the children playing in the water, but he nodded that he enjoyed playing with the children he didn’t know too.

Tony Johnson, a resident of the Minor Street subdivision, said this event was wonderful.

“I think it is wonderful that the kids can come together and splash around in the water,” Johnson said. “The old folks get together too.

“This lady sitting beside me, we grew up together in this neighborhood and have been catching up.”

While catching up with people he grew up and seeing that they have been doing well, Johnson said he noticed one lady in particular he needed to talk to.

“She was one of my old neighbors,” Johnson said with a laugh. “She borrowed an Isaac Hayes album from me about thirty years ago, and I want it.”

NFD Lt. Ernest Owens said he comes to the event every year, whether he is on duty or off.

“This is my old neighborhood, so I am at home here,” Owens said.

Owens was in charge of keeping the children sprayed with the water from the fire hydrant.

“It is good to cool them down,” Owens said. “If it was up to me, we’d do this on and off all day.

“I think it is great for them to be able to cool down on this hot day and have fun at the same time.”

Up the block, Patrice Wilson, 10, won a backpack in a sack race.

“The sack race has been my favorite thing so far,” Wilson said. “I like to jump and move, and I’ve never won one before.”

Andrew Robinson said the event could be better if they brought more history into it.

“I think it is a great thing for the kids,” Robinson said. “But it needs more history in it for the grown-ups. Minor Street has been here for a long time.

“It used to keep going all the way to the Forks of the Road.”

But not all of the adults were willing to let a chance at running through the water spray pass, at least Johnson didn’t.

“I think it is something the kids have been waiting to see,” Johnson said. “It would make a lot of them happy, to see me out there.”