Look at me journaling in real time. Unbelievable! With the Art Fairs looming just around the proverbial corner the Townie Party was here again and so, being the lifelong townies that we are, we attended. Six years ago we attended the very first Townie Party which consisted, we think we remember correctly, of a few craft booths for the kids, some live music, and maybe an ice cream vendor, all comfortably housed on the part of Ingalls Mall between the alumni building, the MLB, the fountain, and Washington. I don't remember any streets being closed.
We went again right after Calvin was born when it was in its third year and I remember it being only modestly bigger and we hadn't been back since, so you can imagine our surprise upon turning onto North University and finding the street closed and lined with tents while the entirety of Ingalls Mall between North U and Washington was swarming with people, vendors, and art. In its sixth year the Townie Party has really come into its own.
We walked by all the food vendors at first (a very difficult thing to do with Tios staring us right in the eye) and strolled through the Mall meeting with local businesses, politicians, and art councils along the way; the Boy Choir of Ann Arbor and Wild Swan were there, to name two of our favorites, and we also ran into some of our favorite musicians and friends from our more involved (read: pre-baby) years. We also spent some time chatting with the Dexter Chamber of Commerce (after which they dubbed us "that Dexter Family" and referred to us as such whenever we passed them again, a nice compliment to the older couple on my morning run route who has dubbed me "the Dexter girl" after seeing me run into town so often). The space which used to be the whole of the fair was dedicated to the display and sale of school-aged kids' artwork, row after row of booths that ranged from the over-indulgent to the surprisingly talented, all of which was really overpriced (it wouldn't be an Art Fair if it wasn't, would it now).
Calvin's favorite part, as I'm sure you can tell from the pictures, was the craft booth, which has been an integral part of the Party since its inception six years ago. He also collected a number of stickers from the row of obliging businesses and institutions along our way back to the Tios tent for dinner, which we ate while sitting on the steps of Hill Auditorium. In some ways it was like returning home (to campus, that is), and there was something very special about dinner at the foot of the giant from our past. Other than the music, which was painfully too loud and thankfully closer to the beer garden than to Hill, the Townie Party receives an A+ from us.
