1:22 PM: Mikey the Rad Scientist is leading audience-participation science songs as the 2023 Morgan Junction Community Festival gets under way in the park just north of Beveridge Place Pub. (It’s Father’s Day, so Mikey even brought his dad.) This is a simple three-hour festival in the park this year, with a half-dozen community-group booths (us too):
The booths have simple free activities too – as we mentioned last night, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society has rock-painting for the Save the Stone Cottage campaign.
(Photo courtesy Clay Eals, WSHS – Lauren was painting)
And just north of the park, skateboarding instruction is offered by Let the Kids Skate (once the weather dries – with giveaways, we hear – next to the Seattle Parks booth where you can revisit the park addition’s design plan as they look ahead to site cleanup later this year and park construction in 2025.
(Cove is helping out)
Coming up: The Potholes at 2 pm (sponsored by WSB) and Gary Benson at 3 pm (sponsored by Thunder Road Guitars, also a WSB sponsor). The Morgan Community Association presents the festival every year (and you can come learn about them too), with the aforementioned community co-sponsors and others.
2:07 PM: The Potholes – all young West Seattle musicians – just started their set in the park. No return of raindrops since the first few minutes. Good crowd.
If you like The Potholes – you’ll get to see them at West Seattle Summer Fest, too (3 pm Friday, July 14th)! Meantime, kids’ activities continue – including face-painting with Nichole.
And if you want a traffic-calming sign from SDOT, free, there’s a stock of them at the MoCA booth right by the entrance to the park.
2:40 PM: The Potholes have a heavy dose of what they called “dad rock” in their set – Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd – they even played a soft-rock Chuck Mangione classic. (video added)
They’ve drawn a crowd ringing the park as well as kids dancing on the lawn.
Around the periphery, some sidewalk chalking:
And we’ve had City Council candidate sightings too. Phil Tavel, former VP of MoCA, is emceeing. Rob Saka and family just stopped by to say hi. And Jean Iannelli Craciun is tabling on the sidewalk right outside the festival. (3 1/2 weeks until ballots go in the mail.)
3:04 PM: Final hour of the festival has begun. Gary Benson is performing now, with classic guitar rock/folk. (video added)
Poogooder is here with a variety of activities reinforcing their mission of helping dog owners be more environmentally friendly.
And over at the future park addition, skating is happening:
Skating will continue past 4 pm with a trick contest. The rest of the festival wraps up at 4, so come say hi before then. All ages have been coming through (chatting next to our booth are two families with babies, one just a few weeks old). And the sun’s been shining off and on, too.
3:51 PM: Everybody’s packing up – except the skaters – and Gary Benson just sang “You Got a Friend” as his finale. Thanks to everyone who sponsored and volunteered, and everyone who came by to say hi.
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