Dear Readers,

School's out, summer is here, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to put politics aside [mostly] and concentrate on having fun. There are many community events in North Andover over the summer, everything from a circus to music concerts and fireworks. I'd love to read some feedback from citizens throughout the summer about how attending and supporting these events creates a sense of community.

I'm planning on taking part in as many of these events as our family can manage. For starters, I participated in the Historical Society's "Beyond the Garden Gate" Garden Tour of private gardens in North Andover as a volunteer this past Saturday. I maintain the garden at the Family Cooperative Preschool, whose children-friendly gardens were part of the tour, so I spent my day meeting guests and talking about plantings.

This was a wonderful event that I hope will grow each year [gardening pun intended!]. I spent several hours enjoying the company of some of our elder citizens, descendents of our founding families, and I tried to absorb as much town historical anecdotal information as possible. This is what's important in life. Spending time with people whose company you enjoy.

I'll be showing my own garden in the tour next year - I can't wait!

I'm hoping readers will also want to share info about town events you participate in this summer too!

Sincerely,
Sandy Gleed

Dear Readers,

Hope you were in town for last night's fireworks! So many of our town community traditions have been put on hold because of old center construction issues, like the sheep shearing festival. It's really nice that North Andover was able to preserve this particular event. Over the weekend I also saw the Amesbury fireworks, and part of what I think was Lawrence's as I was heading onto the highway.

Too bad the rain interfered with Thursday night's festivities - but I heard the kids' parade went off just fine!

--Sandy Gleed

I've added the schedules for the weekly town band concerts and the childrens programs (with links to the web sites of the shows) to the calendar. If people have other community events of interest to North Andover you can register on the site and post the events in our community calendar.