National Night Out On The Theo Wirth Parkway...

Photos By John Hoff

I tried to attend a bunch of the National Night Out parties which happened a few days ago, so I could publicize and credit as many great neighbors as possible. The NNO gathering on Theo Wirth Parkway had a lot of people and a lot of food. If there was a bigger NNO party in NoMi, I didn't see it...

In a somewhat apologetic tone, participants told me last year's party was actually BIGGER. One participant told me the event was "kind of an upper Willard Hay picnic combined with NNO for the first time." They sure are particular in Willard Hay, I've noticed, when it comes to those distinctions between "upper" Willard Hay and the other part of the neighborhood.

Margie Degan is pictured at the top, in pink. This is her fourth year of helping to organize NNO. Degan credits Moshon, the owner of the Handi Stop on West Broadway, with bringing so much of the food and standing there all day, grilling meat. Moshan is in the third picture, hidden somewhere behind the grill smoke. State Senator Linda Higgins appears in the second photo. She apparently manages to make it to most of the NNO parties in her district, and perhaps ALL of them, who knows? I saw some of Higgins' campaign literature at one party, and also some from Michael Guest, running for Park Board.

In the last photo is Jim Lovestar, (on the left) who is very involved with the community garden at 24th and Upton. Lovestar said the garden is located "where a house blew up" and that a "Jordan neighbor bought the lot, so they let it be for gardening." The woman on the right is joAnn Ulm, who spells her first name just the way I wrote it: joAnn. The children pictured with her are Jesse, Johnathon and Joseph Ulm. I'm told these children all work very hard in the community garden.