A master storyteller, La Conner author Tom Robbins lent his name to another well-received work here Saturday.

Only this time he did so not with his pen, but with his mere presence. And it had everything to do with fun rather than work.

That's because a large crowd – many dressed as characters from his best-selling novels – descended on town for a festive, sun-splashed afternoon celebrating the La Conner wordsmith's decades-long mastery of wit, wisdom and eclectic thought.

The timing couldn't have been better. Twenty-four hours later La Conner was shrouded in heavy overcast, a cool mist dampeni...