Public Notice: Spring Is Busting Out ...

Photo by Nick Barbaro

Free pot at the Governor's Mansion! That's the promise on the sign someone posted outside our office, and I don't think they mean the gardening variety.

The idea is to "Smoke Ring the Governor's Mansion," as the sign says, at 4:20pm on 4/20 (next Wednesday), with signs, banners, bull horns, and pot smokers, presumably to protest the resident there and to agitate for more appropriate, sane, realistic, logical, humane, fiscally sound – pick the adjective you want; they're all applicable – marijuana laws.

I say presumably because, of course, no one's in charge of this event. Being in charge of the event would be like admitting that you smoke pot, and that's illegal. None of us smoke pot, right?

Yet the event promises "thousands of pot smokers," each bringing "something to share." Attendees are encouraged to wear black masks, hoodies, gloves, caps, bandanas, and running shoes, which sounds like they're expecting some law enforcement action. But that would be crazy, of course. Arresting people for smoking pot at a rally against pot laws would be like the police shooting people at a rally against police violence. ... Oh, wait, they did?

Anyway, for more info, see the ad on p.59 (sponsored by "Anonymous" with the anarchy symbol), or scan the QR code – qrco.de/bctoHs – which resolves to a Facebook page with a copy of the ad, and the caveat that "we are not the creator of this event. This page is only to provide information obtained through rumor, innuendo, word of mouth or smoke signal. Actual creator totally anonymous." Of course.

Seeing as I pretty thoroughly slammed the cement-heavy design of the new Waterloo Park when it opened last fall ("What Have They Done to Our Park?" Sept. 3, 2021), it seems only fair to give the park and Waterloo Greenway, the conservancy that helped design it, some credit for the programming they're activating it with. Their spring schedule includes two programs: Morning Glories is a weekly early childhood education series, Tuesdays at 10am, rotating between "Women of Jazz," April 19 & May 10, "Dance With Dance Waterloo," April 26 & May 17, and "Read Together," an outdoor storytime May 3 with the Texas Book Festival. Meanwhile, Weekly Work­outs at Waterloo offers five weekly sessions presented by Ascension Seton. Esquina Tango does "Latin Dance" the next two Tuesdays at 7:30pm; the other programs, Monday and Tuesday evenings and Wed­nes­day and Sunday mornings, run through early June.

There's also the Waterloo Green Day festival next Sunday, April 24, an Earth Day celebration presented in partnership with Planet Texas 2050, a research project at UT-Austin aiming to make Texas climate-resilient and sustainable by the year 2050(!). There'll be exhibits, workshops and panels, music, ballet, and birds of prey, among other things. Full info on all these doings at waterloogreenway.org.

The Mile of Silence is an art installation organized by the Hill Country Ride for AIDS: a half-mile trail-side display of small red flags, bearing the names of people lost to the AIDS epidemic, along with long-term survivors and advocates. It's a multiyear collection, with new flags added each year. It's up now in Pease Park, but the installation of new flags was postponed because of weather and will now be 4-7pm Tuesday, April 19, with a brief dedication at 6:30. HCRA encourages folks to "walk, run, or cycle through the park and reflect on those lost to AIDS and the support still needed for those impacted with HIV."

Project Connect continues its working group meetings, sharing plans for specific transit stations and corridors and gathering public feedback. You can see the results of last week's SoCo Working Group at left; next up is the North Guadalupe/North Lamar Working Group (from Hemphill Park all the way north to the Tech Ridge and North Lamar Transit Centers), on Monday, April 18, 5:30pm on Zoom. Get more info and register at projectconnect.com/get-involved.