rain still does not threaten burtonsville day celebration

Burtonsville Day is the one time a year Burtonsville looks like the "small town" it purports to be the rest of the time. For all the people who come out each year for the parade up Old Columbia Pike and festival at the Praisner Center, I wonder how many don't even know what it is. My own parents, who've lived here for ten years, had no idea what Burtonsville Day was until I was in it this year. What I didn't know last July when I took my current job that my duties would include driving the official George Leventhal parade float SUV (at left) as the Councilmember and his son rode on top.

LEFT: County Councilmembers on parade down Old Columbia Pike, from left to right: Phil Andrews, Nancy Navarro, Nancy Floreen and Marc Elrich. (I am driving George Leventhal's car while taking this photo.) RIGHT: District 4 Councilmember Nancy Navarro rode in a rented Zipcar.

Going to more and more events in Downtown Silver Spring has spoiled me, I think, because it seemed like there wasn't enough activity at Burtonsville Day. I'm convinced that it was smaller than last year's Burtonsville Days - which included a movie Friday night and a fashion show Saturday afternoon - but I can't really tell.
The East County Regional Services Center booth - staffed by assistant director Chuck Crisostomo, director Joy Nurmi, and advisory board member Benoy Thomas (at left) - was a stopping point for local luminaries, among them state Del. Anne Kaiser and Alison Praisner Klumpp, who was eating a hot dog when I asked her for a photo but quickly hid it (at right). Joy and Chuck insisted that this year's Burtonsville Day was far, far bigger than last year's, which was threatened by rain. Of course, it rained like hell this year, too. So I don't really know, but I'll defer to the optimists, I guess.

I used to joke that East County was the "Bible Belt" of MoCo, and for good reason. (Just look at this Google map in which I searched for "church" in Burtonsville.) One out of every six booths (there were thirty-six in total) at Burtonsville Day were for one of the area's many houses of worship. The majority of them were seeking to fill pews, but Epiphany Lutheran Church on Old Columbia Pike was selling flowers.

Of course, the biggest attraction is always the food, provided by the Burtonsville Lions. You can smell it all the way up and down Old Columbia Pike, filling the nasal gap between where you stop smelling Old Hickory Grille at 198 and where you start smelling Marina's Pollo a la Brasa at Briggs Chaney Road. This kid definitely wanted a couple more hours of sleep, but hopefully a hamburger will wake him up.

If I took any photos you haven't already seen, they'll probably be in this nifty slideshow.