All Pawtucket All The Time

All Around Town with Dawn and TinkerBell

By Dawn P. Goff

Pawtucket was the place to be this weekend.  The 11^th annual Arts Festival kicked off with the Taste of Pawtucket on Friday night. 

Unfortunately Saturday’s rain caused the cancellation of one event, the Dragon Boat Races, and the rescheduling of another, the Celebration of French Culture.

True to the changing New England weather Sunday was a glorious day, not a hint of the weather that canceled the events the day before.  The Celebration of the French Culture was held at the corner of Exchange Street and Roosevelt, the Farmers Marker was on Roosevelt Avenue between the Police Station and Slater Mill, the Slater Mill area and the attached grounds was the site of the Slater Mill Labor & Ethnic heritage Festival and up the hill at Apex was the 2^nd annual Antique & Classic Car Exhibition.  There was different something for everyone. 

Tinker Bell and I arrived at the Labor Festival early. Tinker Bell loved the opportunity to do her favorite thing, meet people.  With information in hand from City Registrar Ken McGill regarding the 2010 Censuses we headed to visit the Worm Ladies of Charlestown, Inc. Nancy Warner and Lois Fulton.  The business name said it all they had worms for sale along with containers to make compost heaps. 

As we continued on our way, we stopped at Steve’s Chair Caning Service to watch a new seat being caned and the ladies from Lucid Sunshine knitting various outfits.  There were spinning demonstrations, leather makers, and quilting groups to visit. 

In the center of it all was Marvelous Marvin and his Circus Workshop.  Marvin called everyone over to learn how to juggle.  He had balls, clubs, ribbons, hoops, and Frisbees on a pole.  With a little coaching from Marvin people began to master the two ball juggle and some even the three ball juggle.   Tinker Bell thought the balls were for playing with and had fun trying to get them. 

Donna Boronski and Jo Madden from Rock Paper Scissors had a large selection of homemade greeting cards, bookmarks and magnets.  I found the perfect magnet to add to my collection: it read “There is no better Psychologist then a dog licking your face”.  Anyone who has visited my house knows that Tinker Bell’s loves to lick faces.

As we walked around music from the two separate performance stages filled the air. Our last stop of the day was for a free blood pressure check from United Nurses & Allied Professionals.  They offered to take Tinker Bell’s blood pressure but she only wanted to lick their faces. 

We didn’t get a chance to stop at the Antique Car show but Program Chair Pat Zacks did let us know that Seekonk’s Andy & Roz Oliveira won the Mayor Choice Award for his 1931 Ford Model A and Bob Langlois                 won the Exhibitors Award and People Choice award for his 1957   Ford T Bird.

We can’t wait to visit next week’s events.  If you see us there don’t forget to say Hi!