I fear the charm is going to be lost among the hoopla

Now that Pow Wow night is here, I am questioning the whole thing. There is so much going on tonight that the real Coconut Grove may be lost. I am guessing the savvy travelers know that we don't usually have dancing girls on every street corner and the only people that moonlight swim at Cabana One are the ones thrown in the pool during rowdy parties.

George's doesn't usually have acrobats hanging over the awnings and we don't have ambassadors at every turn, in fact, we usually don't even have anyone in the actual information booths.

Our charm is our old town atmosphere -- tree lined streets, the bay, the funky Grove characters. One thing the visitors should look for tonight is how all the ambassadors interact with each other. To see how the characters all fall into place. They need to see that we are real, we interact with each other daily. We all like each other and all love the Grove.

If a visitor would stand on a street corner and just observe or sneak in on a Merchants Meeting or 4th of July meeting, they would see the real Grove and the real characters. That is what they need to take away from tonight, a sense of community and characters. They need to feel that when they visit the Grove, they are being a part of that, they are entering another world, a sitcom world maybe(?), only real.

I see this reaction when people enter the Windisch-Hunt Gallery, they feel like they entered something special, they almost get giddy -- Fred Hunt is painting in one corner, some of us are eating at a table, some others are painting one thing or another at another table, like maybe coconuts, someone else is working on the computer, someone else may be hanging art; one time there was a rehearsal for the Mango Bama dance and visitors just wandered around and enjoyed this as if they stumbled upon something secret, real and fun.

Another time, people entered the Bookstore to see the whole town holding a village meeting. They enjoyed this, it was organic, real and hometown-like. They felt as if they stumbled upon something special.

We live here because we don't have something going on 24/7, but we actually do have a lot going on. I like to think of us as being the anti-South Beach. I hope the visitors tonight see that. I hope they see that village business owners visit with each other during the day, they pop in next door for coffee or to visit for a bit. They share food and gossip, they hang out at Paul's sunglasses kiosk, and shoot the breeze. This is how it really is.

So many people don't have any idea what goes on here in Coconut Grove. Aside from us being a cozy little village, we are a busy place. We are hardly a sleepy little village. There is something going on all the time. But not all at once as will be tonight.

I would tell visitors that aside from the shopping, dining and unwinding, this list below is what we have going on on a regular basis throughout the year, and this is only the half of it, also keep in mind, the lead up to every one of these events is a show in itself. All the planning committees, rehearsals, dinners and pre-events are just as fun and maybe more fun and enjoyable than the actual final event.

Just in the last few months, we have experienced these events:

The Gifford Lane Art Stroll (Story here and Slide show here)
Bike Day was incredible. Story and pictures here.
The King Mango Strut here
Movies in the Park here
Shakespeare in the Park here
The Taste of the Grove here
The Coconut Grove Arts Festival here
The Monthly Antique Market here
Poetry Night at the Bookstore here and even Waffle Sunday here
We have Burn Notice filming all around us like we reported here
We have artists on the streets here and artists dressed as clowns here
We have Breakfast with the Artists every month here
We also have a master artist who anyone can meet any day of the week here
We even have a Lobster Crane Game here
And there is always sailing and water sports available like here
Our old fashioned 4th of July is coming up (think Mayberry or Stars Hollow)

These are just a few of the past events, and just a few of the upcoming events. If you go into our archives and snoop around, you would be amazed at all that goes on here. This is what the tour operators and travel writers need to know about the Grove. Not that we have fire eaters on Commodore Plaza tonight.