Another free & family-friendly 2nd Saturday Downtown (plus the St. Patrick’s Day parade & festival)

The March 12th 2nd Saturday Downtown event coincides with the St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Festival (click here for my previous blog). The one hour parade will begin at 5:30PM on 14th & Stone Avenue, wind through Downtown – E. Congress, Broadway and 6th Avenue – ending at Armory Park, where the festival will be. (The St. Patrick’s Day festival starts there at 3 p.m., prior to the parade, and will go on throughout the evening.)

This is the eleventh 2nd Sat. DT urban fest since the inaugural event on May 8, 2010. Website: www.2ndsaturdaysdowntown.com. It’s been almost one year of these fun- filled urban street fests, and I’ve been to almost every one. It’s wonderful to see Downtown come alive again!

For the usual event schedule, click here for the music entertainment at The Rialto Theatre, the Fox Tucson Theatre, the Scott Avenue stage, and the numerous other locales on and around E. Congress Street. Most of the events are FREE. There are lots of booths too selling delicious food (from all nations), and crafts as well. And lots of clowns, street musicians, people on stilts, human statues, etc. etc.

Food note: delicious, creative crepes will be made & sold in the Planet of the Crepes wagon on Saturday night (photo below courtesy of Jessica Kraus, owner).
She serves freshly made fruit crepes but also ones with chicken, vegetables, and other unique combinations.

Planet of the Crepes wagon

Had a mango/strawberry w/ coconut flakes crepe this past Sunday at the new European Farmers’ Market on the NE corner of Campbell/Speedway, and it was “some ono” – Hawaiian Pidgin English for yummy. (Her cute crepe wagon reminded me of the ubiquitous lunch wagons back home in Hawaii).

Photo below taken by Jeff Smith of the Zsa Zsas (McZsa Zsas?) group slated to perform at The Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress, for free (along with a real leprechaun):

Enjoy another 2nd Saturday Downtown! And don’t forget to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day again (for real) on March 17.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day (even for menehune)

leprechaun in his pot of gold

You all know what an Irish leprechaun is, but do you know about the menehune of Hawaii? St. Patrick’s Day centers around the luck of the Irish and that infamous pot of gold being searched for at the end of a rainbow, by those tiny, mischievous folk, the leprechauns.

Well, back home in Hawaii, we kids grew up looking for menehune, the tiny native folk who also do mysterious things, like build fish ponds and other stone structures in the middle of the night.

There are also a lot of lava caves around for them to live in. I remember as a child on long car trips, looking eagerly for a glimpse of one of those little menehune coming out of the numerous lava tubes/caves along the side of the road of the Big Island. We had lots of rainbows on Hawaii Island, but no gold deposits anywhere (being as it’s volcanic).

One of my high school friends told me that once as a young boy on a cub scout hike, his troop came across very small footprints in the mud of our hilly, rural area of the Big Island. He says they excitedly followed the footprints for a while, which were spaced only a few inches apart. They looked like tiny baby foot impressions in the mud, along a dirt road next to a sugar cane field. Then the Cub Scout Master became scared (probably as he realized these may have been spirits), and they left the area immediately. Who knows? He told me he thought they were menehune footprints.

By the way, one of my friends in town is Hawaiian singer Ernie Menehune (originally from Kauai), who still sings at luaus and sometimes at the Kon Tiki, 4625 E. Broadway.

Anyway, celebrate St. Patrick’s Day today by wearing green (I am) and hoping to find that Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. I know I’m still looking for it.

May the luck of the Irish be with you today.

Erin go braugh!