Skip to main content

Weekend Excitement, Part 2



At last the weekend is upon us, or, at least close enough that we can taste it. If you read yesterday’s post you know all about the 50th Birthday Celebration in Long Reach. A few extra notes on that:  it’s BYOC for the performances (Bring Your Own Chair) and, to assure there will be enough parking, a shuttle will be running regularly from satellite parking at Long Reach High School. 

Now I’ve got another idea for your Saturday: Oktsobarfest.




Presented by the Ellicott City-Columbia Lions Club in collaboration with Sobar, Oktsobarfest will be on the grounds of St. John's Episcopal Church, 9140 Frederick Road in Ellicott City, this Saturday from noon to 4 pm. From the event page:

This family friendly event features lawn games, samples of alcohol-free beverages and local food trucks. Meet and Greet the Ponies with Safe Haven Equine Warriors and watch Kangaroo Kids performance jump rope team.

You can purchase tickets here and your ticket includes admission, all activities, and drink samples.

I wrote about Sobar in December of 2019: 

You may remember that Sobar and founder Beth Harbinson was one of the winners of the Horizon Foundation’s inaugural Changemaker Challenge in 2017, with a goal to create healthy and appealing non-alcoholic beverages to enhance choices for those who choose not to drink. Since then they have been serving up their creative concoctions at local events. Now they are moving into sponsoring their own alcohol-free events.

I recently bumped into Sobar at HoCo Pride, where they were selling some delicious-sounding mocktails at the event. I see from their Facebook page that they’ve also been having events at Dublin Roasters in Frederick. This group is truly on the move.

Now, about tonight. You have another choice. You can pop in to the Long Reach event or, if you have a hankering for some Friday night lights, Wilde Lake High School has a home game. That would give you an opportunity to support the Wilde Lake High School Band and enjoy their halftime show. 

Have a great Friday, and send me your suggestions for what to do on Sunday. I’m open. 





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...