Journal of a Sabbatical

September 4, 2000

bread and roses 16

Today's Reading: The Outermost House by Henry Beston

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pedro Martinez
Pedro's Strikeouts: 11
This is Pedro's 14th double-digit strikeout game this year. A wonderful addition to the Carlton Fisk number retirement.

Darn it's humid. Wicked humid as we say here in the wicked east.

Nancy has to drag me out of the house to attend the Bread and Roses Labor Day Heritage Festival in Lawrence. I want to hear the music, especially Lunasa, but this humidity thing is getting me down.

The sky gets darker. It looks like it will rain any minute.

As we sit listening to Mango Blue (Cuban/Latin Music) fallen maple leaves skitter across the brick walkways. A lone swallow struggles to fly into the wind. Small Dominican children dance with abandon. The sky gets darker.

The sky lightens a little after the first raindrops fall. We wander over to another stage to take in Kostas Taslis' Greek band with a fantastic belly dancer. She moves so fluidly, every part of her body ripples with the music. I'm transfixed. I tell Nancy I want to take belly dancing lessons when I come back from China. She says she can see why.

We wander among the booths looking for food and lemonade. We meet a blue puppet named Gullible who is running for office so we can have our own puppet government. The actual candidates pale in comparison. We meet some of them too - running for things like Clerk of Courts (but not Shellfish Commissioner).

An installation by Reclamation Artists : Fish Car, Fish Lumieres, Visionieres that help you see the future of Lawrence.

A van from the Mass. Department of Forests and Parks displays tree cookies, yes, tree cookies. I tell Nancy this is about the only job I could get with an undergraduate degree in dendrology. The parks official doesn't crack a smile. Maybe she has a degree in dendrology.

Will the rain hold off for Lunasa (Irish band) at 5:00? I feel raindrops just as they start. The wind changes. It gets really cold. The rain stops. It gets colder. Lunasa plays fiery slip jigs and reels to get the dancers up. A guy in shorts and a purple tank top who's been dancing all afternoon to every kind of music goes into overdrive. A woman in a brown jumper dances with a little white dog (yes, a Bichon Frise) while a guy who appears to be with her balances another Bichon Frise on one shoulder and his cell phone on the other. The Gullible puppet dances with a group of tiny girls who couldn't be older than 4 or maybe 5 at the outside.

At the break, I buy both of Lunasa's CDs.

Night begins to fall though it's not 7:00 PM yet. Crows stream past overhead on their way to their night roosts. The MC thanks the weather: "I'd like to thank the weather for holding off the rain ..."

The police presence at this event is huge.

Guys taking down the dining tent bang the stakes in a counterpoint to the music.

The rain holds off until after the 7:00 PM curfew.