by Carolyn Bick
photos by Carolyn Bick and Susan Fried

Squinting in the sun and pinching her lips in concentration, Gloria Duncan maneuvered the fishing rod’s line inside a wooden box, casting about for a magnetic “fish” that would win her a prize.

“A little to the left, a little left – there you go! You got it!” the game booth’s neon green-clad volunteer said, as he lifted the chain line out of the box whose opaque surface read, “Gone Fishin’.”

Duncan was one of the thousands of children and their families who trooped through Beacon Hill’s Jefferson Park that sunny afternoon of June 1 to celebrate the decades-old annual Beacon Hill Festival. The celebration was large, spanning the main portion of the park near the community center, and sprawling out towards the outer green spaces, where people played lawn bowling and flew kites. Put on by the Jefferson Advisory Council in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, the festival was meant to raise funds for the Jefferson Advisory Council Scholarship Fund.

Peppered in and among the games, different groups staffed diverse educational booths, and local artists tended their stalls. The main stage saw several performances throughout the day, including Swing It Seattle dancers engaged in heart-pumping swing numbers to Big Band tunes, and Franklin High School students showing off their musical skills.

A bit further afield, Suzanne Sadow and Ken Conrad told people to go fly a kite — literally — as the pair hoisted various colorful kites into the air. Sadow remarked that the wind was a little finicky that day — it kept rising and then abruptly dying – but the grin on Sadow’s face told this reporter she didn’t mind too much.