Neighborhood “Chalk Around the Park” event: This was the first time we’d done this, but it seems likely to become an annual event! At first, it was pretty quiet. A few friends and families came out to draw on the park’s sidewalks, and some enterprising teenage girls set up a lemonade stand. And then it started to rain.
We all crowded into the picnic shelter, where everybody did their best to be cheerful and neighborly in spite of what seemed like a dud event… and of course, the smallest kids were happily splashing around in the puddles, and mixing chalk with rainwater. Soon there were red, blue, purple puddles all along the sidewalk, and then Bam! the sun came right back out again… and suddenly the park was full of people!

Young hipsters doing abstract murals, little kids making undersea landscapes, parents adding cartoon figures. Half a dozen neighborhood cops came out to do a little art with us. A bunch of teenage boys rode by on bikes, so we invited them to join in. They looked scornful and rode off…. except that two of them came back a few minutes later and stood around watching. One of them drew a little cartoon of Grr. Everyone admired it, and he got braver. Soon he and his friend had joined forces with the lemonade girls and sketched out a gigantic Grr – easily 12 feet in diameter. The four of them spent at least an hour coloring it in.

There’s photos on the neighborhood website…..