Monday, May 3, 2010

First Friday coming up this Friday...

..and there appears to be limited noticed once again.

Dorothy Maloney's column in The Waxhaw Exchange fails to mention it (column can be found here). John Tiley at The Waxhaw Gazette has not mentioned it as far as I can tell & per his schedule, it appears it won't be published again until too late - this Friday.

But if you're a loyal reader of this blog and its comments and remember every little thing that comes across my wires, you wouldn't be caught unaware. Hopefully the businesses have been informed plenty in advance this time around.

Per Gavin of the STMSPC (heh):
The next First Friday is May 7 and our theme is "Movie Madness". We plan to show movies on a large exterior wall and encourage merchants to host events that are tied to this movie theme (or show movies at their locations).
I wrote up a travelogue of my family's last First Friday, complete with pictures, & figured now would be a good time to share it for what it's worth.

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I figured walking into town to check out First Friday would be an enjoyable evening and that is exactly what it was. I thought I'd write something up so that maybe those fence-sitters considered checking it out, although I didn't realize it'd take me so long to do it.

While we originally toyed with eating in town, I'm a fan of 521 BBQ & Grill (mentioned here), so when it was offered up as an alternative for dinner by my family, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn't think it would clash with our Waxhaw-themed evening since it's close to Waxhaw, right? (I also heard a rumor that the proprietor was looking into moving into the possibility of moving into Waxhaw, but have no idea if that's accurate. BBQ lovers can only hope.)

We stopped briefly at the house to drop off the car (and to loosen my belt) & then headed into Waxhaw. The first shop open was The Quilting Nook. We stopped in briefly to check out the quilts; the boys asked for a cookie & I said 'No.'

The next shop open was the Waxhaw Antique Mart (disregarding Rippington's since we'd already eaten). Typically, I stay outside with the boys when we visit this store to ensure we're not footing a large bill of broken glass. But this time I went in & saw lots of neat stuff, spying a pair of Civil War-era sharpshooter glasses I wanted to get for no particular reason. While perusing the wares, I heard loud dance music coming from outside. After a minute or so, I realized what this meant, informed my wife what was going on, and headed outside to check out the... Waxhaw Fiesta Band.

They were just starting so there was only a few of them but the Stormtrooper was already there acting as their vanguard, as evidenced by this picture:

Stormtrooper in Waxhaw


My boys were outside with Grandpa enjoying the dancing & tunes. I came out to check out the show. A photographer & reporter were present, which turned out to be none other than Elisabeth Arriero, dare I say Waxhaw's one-time ace reporter. Since I was one of the few (only?) bystanders present at that time, she came over to ask me some questions (detailed previously here). If you were ever curious about the business of obtaining hard news in Waxhaw, prepare to be awed by this never-before-seen illustration of Elisabeth in action.

Obtaining hard news in Waxhaw

I like to say I stayed cool under her barrage of pointed questions.

[One side note on the Fiesta Band: I'm not sure how appreciated they will be by nearby businesses on First Friday evenings, particularly the Waxhaw Antique Mart. I suspect there will be a significant-enough group of potential patrons that will not be interested in running the Fiesta Band gauntlet to examine the Antique Mart's wares. Maybe the town can begin blocking off the southern side of Broome Street on First Friday evening to accommodate the ever-growing Fiesta Band, which would give them plenty of room to perform the Thriller dance. That is...if they think they can manage it. (yes, consider that a shot across their bow)]

After crossing Broome Street, one of my boys partook of the lemonade being offered by Waxhaw UMC. Due to increased whining about getting ice cream, we skipped the Bead Merchants & were heading straight for the Library Association's used book store when we got sidetracked by The Broom Shop (mentioned here). I had been looking for this shop for weeks as I drove by & for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where it was. But there it was tucked in between the used book store & the Bead Merchants. A very small shop (does anyone know what was there before Mark began making old-fashioned brooms?), but large enough to handle his antique broom-making machine.

Regardless, my parents interest in seeing a broom made outlived my boys interest so we took the little ones to the used book shop. They picked out a couple of books each, while I scored a Dashiell Hammett hardback containing five of his novels, including "The Maltese Falcon" and "Red Harvest" -- the latter being worth the price of admission alone. I lent my copy to my brother years ago & haven't seen it since. I highly recommend it if you're into hard-boiled detective fiction. However, if you're only interested in speaking like a hard-boiled detective, then I suggest you visit this site.

After the book shop, we met up with grandpa, broom in hand. We headed down Broome Street heading toward Pizza Works, the only game in town if you want ice cream now. I noticed The Antique Clock Shop was open, but we decided to skip since the kids were running on empty.

As we headed home with our ice cream, we stopped in to see a live pottery demonstration at Stewart's Village Gallery before heading home for the evening. As we walked along North Main Street, we could hear the the tail end of the Fiesta Band's "performance." The boys wanted to check them out once again, but it was past bed time.

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