Hawthorns right on schedule

Finally lifted from the album, Friday afternoon, May 6, 2020. Posted Saturday morning, June 6.

The Pop Mannion Bandstand at Pop Mannion Town Hall. Niskayuna, New York. Friday afternoon, May 6, 2020.

Despite appearances, the Hawthorns up this way are past full bloom. Leaves are beginning to show themselves under the blossoms. Right on schedule. Down home where it’s been warmer they were at this stage two weeks ago. This is the bandstand on the lawn in front of the town hall. Like the town hall it’s named after Pop Mannion. I think a lot of the town's citizens call it the Gazebo. But it’s the Bandstand. That’s what Pop had it built to be. He was inspired by the bandstand in Chatham and the Friday night concerts there. Sometimes I half-wonder if Pop built the new town hall built just to have a place to put his bandstand. In the twenty-five years since the first one was erected---this is the second. The first was taken down by a windstorm as powerful as a tornado---there have been band concerts throughout the summers. I haven’t heard if there are going to be concerts this summer, here or in Chatham, with the pandemic’s course still running. I hope so. And if we’re still up here come summer, we’ll try to go to one, and sing lustily along and then stomp and clap and cheer for the finale---”The Stars and Stripes Forever”, Pop’s favorite in Chatham and here.

Comments

[Bill Wolfe]

In my little hometown in northeast Ohio, we have a bandstand in the public square, surrounded by Victorian era buildings. Our bandstand also is commonly referred to as a gazebo and we, too, have band concerts there on Friday evenings in the summer. Not this year, though. (We did have a Black Lives Matter protest on the square last weekend, though, which amazed and pleased me.)