Seafair is over.
Now we head into the dog days of summer.
Before we find ourselves there, though, let us praise the volunteers who have made our summer festivals possible.
Last Friday and Saturday arrived for Magnolia Summer Festival in classic August fashion: cool, cloudy mornings giving way to afternoon blue.
The festival featured an imaginative range of music and entertainment, interesting artwork, baby races, parades, a sidewalk sale and outdoor movie, accompanied by the sound of the breeze playing in those majestic poplars in a row between the Village and Magnolia Playfield.
Summer Festival, sponsored by the Magnolia Chamber of Commerce, is like a heartwarming song lyric. It looks easy to pull off, but isn't.
Countless hours of behind-the-scenes planning preceded the event. The daunting logistics, with so many moving parts, rendered the volunteers' job description to something like trying to corner field mice. Yet new volunteers are always coming onboard while old hands provide continuity. We'd be remiss if we didn't point out the contribution of Darrel Drew, who has been organizing the Seafair and kids parade for, lo, these past 34 years.
Earlier this summer, Queen Anne Day on July 7, which included the Crown of Queen Anne Fun Run & Walk, reflected the same volunteer commitment. This year's Fun Run & Walk was bittersweet. After more than two decades, it may have been the last, at least on Queen Anne. That event, which benefits the Queen Anne Helpline, is a quintessential Queen Anne happening, yet unless more participants are guaranteed, the city may require the fundraiser be moved elsewhere, off urban streets. We'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, Queen Anne's Uptown Stroll, sponsored by the Uptown Alliance and featuring art, poetry and music, will take place Aug. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Counterbalance Park. Once again a cadre of dedicated neighborhood volunteers has taken up the challenge to put on a fun event for the entire community.
The following weekend, of course, is Bumbershoot, when the macro-professionals and swollen crowds move in to mark the unofficial but emphatic end to summer.
But we won't get ahead of ourselves.
There is still plenty of August to savor, a good time to spare a thought for this summer's volunteers who have helped create, in Queen Anne Day, Magnolia Summer Festival and the upcoming Uptown Stroll, signature community events.
These selfless efforts are not about fame, riches or glory. And the rest of us are the beneficiaries.
Take a bow, volunteers.
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