Perhaps no other piece of technology has frustrated and angered drivers more than the parking meter.

Nearly everyone who has ever parked in a metered spot has a story of jammed or broken meters, running out of change or arriving to feed the meter just in time to see a ticket sitting on the windshield.

People complain and vent about meters, and in some situations even take their frustration out by damaging the meters.

But that history of driver frustration does not tell the whole story of the parking meter. Meters provide a valuable source of revenue to local governments and keep people from monopolizing parking spaces.

Since its birth more than 70 years ago, the parking meter has become a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape. That legacy is the springboard for a unique festival in Irwin.

On May 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the town will pay homage to the so-often belittled meter with food, music and games.Mike Pochan of the Irwin Business and Professional Association came up with the idea.

He said he was reading a front page article in the Wall Street Journal about the 70th anniversary of the patenting of the meter, which took place in May of 1938.

"I thought to myself, if this is good enough for the front of the Wall Street Journal it's good enough for a festival," Pochan said.

So Pochan and the Business Association set out to defy the meter's image as an object of hate and instead celebrate it.

"We thought we would put a positive spin on the thing and have some fun with it instead of all the negativity," he said. "It was a zany idea, just for fun."

Carl C. Magee invented the parking meter in 1935, and the first ones went up in Oklahoma City. Irwin's meters, which still only accept nickels and dimes, date back to the late 1930s.

Irwin's festival will celebrate its meters with a variety of events. Competitors will challenge each other in a race down the 300 block of Main Street, running to and touching each of the 17 meters along the way.

Another event will feature strength rather than speed, with contestants trying to throw an old parking meter head the farthest.

Community groups and local businesses can sign up to decorate a parking meter, and judges will award prizes to the best decorations. More culinary-oriented individuals can submit a cake, cookie or even meatloaf made in the shape of a parking meter.

The festival will culminate in with the crowning of Irwin's first parking meter queen.

People at the festival will vote to pick from a pool of contestants, and the winner will be presented by Irwin Mayor Daniel Rose, North Irwin Mayor Lenny Sanimeyer.

The new queen will also receive a scepter from Irwin's honorary meter queen, borough manager Mary Benko.

Organizers hope the variety of events will draw people in to the festival. Debbie Hunt, a Business Association member and owner of Workability in Irwin, said people's first reactions tend to be a bit incredulous.

"I think some people think it's almost a joke," she said. "They don't understand how you could make a festival out of a parking meter."

"I think that alone is a draw," she said.

The festival is certainly unlike anything else. "We're pretty sure from researching on the Internet that this is the first time anyone has done this," Pochan said.

Hunt agreed. "It's one way we can differentiate our community from others," she said.

Particularly for a town surrounded by suburbs, with their massive meter-less parking lots, meters are a sign of a special history. Downtown Irwin's meters evoke an age where the borough was the cultural and economic center of the region.

"Parking meters are kind of an interesting part of the history of small towns," Hunt said.

Cities across the country have and still use meters to regulate both street and lot parking. Since its birth more than 70 years ago, the parking meter has become an unbiquitous part of the urban landscape.

Meters are also an endangered species. The coin fed, mechanical meters than line Irwin's streets are a dying breed, frequently replaced by digital meters or multi-space meters that accept dollar bills and credit cards.

New York City, which first put in a parking meter in 1951, replaced the last of its mechanical meters in 2006.

New lots and street parking in Pittsburgh have multi-space meters, and the city has replaced most of its mechanical meters with digital ones.

So as the parking meter enters its eighth decade, it remains to Irwin to honor its achievements.