Scene This Week In...

Once again I am surprised by how little merchandising is done is for Fourth of July holiday. For the second year in a row Mama Wordbones and I have hosted an Independence Day party for our new neighbors in our new neighborhood. Since nobody lived here three years ago,a few of us have created opportunities for all these new people to actually meet each other outside of the bus stop.

We adopted the 4th of July holiday. I like the 4th. It remains one of those few holidays that always falls on the same date. It hasn’t been corrupted into a hybrid holiday like “Presidents Day.”

Anyway, I went searching for patriotic stuff to deck the place out appropriately (and only marginally tacky) and I had a harder than I expected. Halloween, New Years Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, to name a few, all are heavily marketed. In fact you could say that they are over marketed. Not so much with 4th though. I visited Target, Wal-Mart, Party, Party, Party among others and I gotta tell ya, the pickings are pretty slim.

One exception is the Forget Me Not Factory on Main Street in Ellicott City. While their selection was not what you could still call extensive, it was varied and unique. I dropped a few bucks with them today and I had a good time doing it.

The store is owned by a mother/daughter team, Nancy and Janet. Their most visible pitchman is Barry the Bubble Man. All throughout the year Barry dons a variety of seasonally appropriate costumes and stands in front of the store working an arsenal of bubble wands for the passersby. This weekend he will be Uncle Sam in shorts.
An outpost of Columbia exists in closer proximity to Emerson and Maple Lawn than it does to Columbia. It even has a Laurel zip code. The Columbia Horse Center out on Gorman Road is owned by the Columbia Association but it actually run by Columbia Horse Center, Inc.

My daughter is attending Horsemanship Camp at The Columbia Horse Center this summer. Two years ago she attended Pony Pals there too. They are a great group of folks and the kids seem to be having a great time.

I made them my Scene This Week in Columbia because I've always liked the "Whoa" sign.