Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Church Street - Burlington VT - 2014

Welcome to Church Street and Church Street People, 2014. There ain't no place on earth like Church Street and if you had the time to look back through this blog you would see why I say that. Each summer I leave Linköping in Sweden to spend a few weeks in the woods of northern Vermont and an hour or two almost every day on Church Street where so many great people turn up every day - without fail.

I am just back from the USA so tonight, July 2d, I just want to start in case any of the people shown here here have gone in to the blog and found nothing. Will be adding more. Right now I will just use captions to tell a bit about the people in the pics.


The High Point of Church Street 2014
Kids Lemonade Run by the "kids" from the King Street Center
All of those I got to know have their family roots in Sub-Saharan Africa but they are now just plain old Americans
(They are going to get their own post here but they provide the banner for 2014)
Church Street becomes the concert hall for a real potpourri of musicians of every age, musical taste, and development. In my time in Burlington this year the street was quieter than in the past - will insert URL to a previous year but not now.) There have been some really fine fiddlers in the past and that tradition is kept up by this fiddler whose fiddling caught my ear and led me to her.

I was just about to leave when I heard some really fine fiddling
giving some Irish folk tunes their place in the Church Street Sun.
The fiddler is Addie, 14 years old, and she gets the little kids dancing
 and even climbing the rock in back of her. She went from the Irish
 tunes to some French Canadian that were really neat.
 Now I hope to introduce her to  Swedish and Norwegian fiddlers.
She plays great!




What I love about being in my part of the USA - New England - is that it is so easy to talk with people and learn something about them and what they have on their minds, even if you will never see them again. Case in point below. We were both listening to Addie and "she" (unnamed at the moment) was praising Addie as was I when suddenly she said "Can I borrow your camera". The result is a Sony DSC RX 100 "Selfie" which without a doubt is convincing evidence of the happiness Church Street people can bring out in others.


"She" took the selfie with my camera, something I absolutely
could not manage myself, probably proof that people like
her who have grown up taking selfies have mastered the art of
holding an I phone or even more difficult a Sony DSC RX 100 and getting a pic.

Last for my first evening back in Sweden - need I say I need some sleep - is a clue to the range of human beings you will see on and around Church Street on any given day. My thought on seeing Mr. Orange was that he could stand next to Kids Lemonade and drum up business for them - as if they needed any help, they don't.

Want to have your 15 minutes of fame? Do as Mr. Orange,
wrap yourself in a color of your choice and strike up a conversation
as Mr. Orange had just done here.
SIGNING OFF FOR TONIGHT. 
TOMORROW YOU GET TO SEE A PERFORMER WHO IS ALREADY AT MY FB.