GOOMBAY IS BACK

    The Bahama's Goombay Festival spilled into Coconut Grove forty years ago. For two days every fall we'd have a Nassau parade on Grand Avenue surrounded by delightful island music and food.
The West Grove tradition has had its ups and downs but it last Saturday it was rockin'!
   The Grove's new pop-up celebration "Market Place on Goombay Plaza" was finally open for business.

    For a year our neighbors will be on this corner sharing their music,

barbecue, 

and conch salad with us.



   
     The forlorn lot in the center of the Grove's Bahamian village has been dead since 1989. That's when an old man, Howard Johnson, set up
a little golf course.  He planted tin cups in the ground to enjoy playing the game there daily.
Between rounds he'd sit under these palms and tell people like me how much he loved sinking putts.
     

Now, Howard's mini-golf course is a vibrant  

mini-festival site for all to enjoy. It was funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation and produced by the City of Miami, the "U", and  West Grove citizenry. 

 
   These two smiling ladies were selling delicious conch fritters and bread pudding. 


   I drove by Saturday night and folks were still dancin' in the grass under sparkling holiday lights.  
   It doesn't get any Grove-ier is that.
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HOUSE OF STICKS

   Saturday we had a workshop to teach people how to weave a stick sculpture, something like the one just created at Pinecrest Gardens.
   Among those attending were our city commissioner, Ken Russell and his family.
Here you see Ken and his son, August, learning the ins and outs of stick weaving.  We are a creating an 8-foot tall work of art that looks something like a modernist teepee.  It is located in the SW corner of our new people's park.  This public place is at the corner of Plaza St. and Palmetto Ave. in the
South Grove.
    Afterwards I gave the Russells a tour of Charlie's Woods on the NE corner of the four-part park.
   Stop by anytime and check out our creation.  There's work to be done and a pile of saplings next to our art work. Feel free to weave in a few sticks yourself. It's a "people's sculpture" in a people's park.
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              Eva Russell (left) and her sister, Julia, with the park's historical marker.
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MITCH  MADE A MOVIE!

    Our friend, Mitchell Kaplan keeps giving us  things we love, good books, great food, and now, a holiday movie.  The Books & Books owner teamed up with local writer, Les Standiford, to get this one in theaters.  It opened last Friday to good reviews.  
      The Miami author wrote "The Man Who Invented Christmas" nine years ago. It's about the difficulties Charles Dickens had getting someone to publish his holiday classic "A Christmas Carol".
Scrooge (played by Christopher Plummer) and all other Carol characters appear in this heart-warming mix of fact and fiction.

   Support your local artists and see "The Man Who Invented Christmas" soon.  It's a feel good movie that will make you forget The Orange Grinch Who Stole the County for a few hours. It's now playing at theaters everywhere.
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