By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON June 18, 2012 Near perfect weather for the Sound of Music Festival. Later in the month we will get the figures, but it looked to us like another record breaking event with some top flight entertainment, no major police problems and pods on the side streets that worked very well.
The Festival parade was a highlight for many with New Street lined with residents who enjoyed the bands and children who were taken in by it all.
There was one gentleman who put his ear plugs in each time a pipe band went by – he explained that pipes were an acquired taste.
There was one feature that few will have fully appreciated and that was the car with Mayor Rick Goldring in the front seat and a small Japanese man in the back seat wearing white gloves and waving his hand. There was no signage on the car to indicate who he was. The passenger, along with an interpreter was Mr. Nakazawa who was the donator of the cherry blossom trees at Spencer Smith Park and the giver of more than $100,000 to the city. Mr. Nakazawa doesn’t speak a word of English but, as Mayor Goldring explained “he just loves Burlington”.
The parade was a great display of the diversity that is now such a large part of Burlington.