Edgewater Days
By: Betty Mayian
The Edgewater Historical Society participated for the third straight year in the Edgewater Days festival on Granville. The event was held on July 21-22 in the very HOT sun, but this year we came prepared with a blue canopy tent. We set up the tent with the help of some neighboring vendors and three EHS board members. The metal poles seemed unwieldy but we followed the directions and were successful. If you did not visit the festival then you’ll see the tent at the Home Tour.
If you want to know what it’s like to sit in the heat under a canopy for about five hours just listen. Bring lots of water. Even under the canopy you should have sun screen and sun glasses. A kind of fatigue hits you after a couple of hours and you begin talking about ways to get cool like holding pop cans on your neck or wearing an ice cold wash cloth. To most passersby this sounds like babbling.
The heat seemed to hold back the crowds during the early afternoons. But still many came by to volunteer or to sit and tell stories about the neighborhood. We usually had an extra chair so some of the seniors sat down for awhile.
Our real reason for being there is for the bus tours we offered each day….in an air-conditioned bus loaned to us by the Breakers. Al Walavich guided a tour of the Rosehill cemetery and Kathy Gemperle guided an architectural tour of all of Edgewater. The only way to do this is from a bus. Among the many who visited our booth were some young people with interests in journalism who might help on the Scrapbook or in writing grant proposals. A young woman with a background in anthropology expressed an interest in helping out. Another young man who works in managing special events said he could help us plan fund-raisers. Just talking with these people made sitting in the heat worthwhile.
Of course, the whole festival was interesting. If a person could have planned ahead it would have been a great place to do Christmas and birthday shopping. The artwork ranged from photography to pottery, jewelry and ethnic crafts.
Our booth was near one of the music stages. We heard the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band and they were terrific - jazzy and upbeat. There was a young singer, Ellen Rosner, who put on a great performance in the style of Patsy Kline and K.D. Lang. The rock group Gist was very good with a high-spirited female singer. When we started to fold up our tent (just before the downpour) we heard a stirring blues singer with a group called Pulsation. Great entertainment, even in the heat. When the sun went down more people came out. When 1 returned to my 36th floor apartment I could hear the music and the crowds.