To the editor:

As a local resident, I look forward every summer to the tradition and ritual of attending Choochokam’s beer garden and Saturday night street dance.

It’s where you support the locals, catch up with friends and then get the most euphoric, aerobic workout dancing with your neighbors; the young, the old. The hippies come out of the woodwork, as does your dentist, car mechanic, cabinet maker, house painter, etc.

If there ever was a place that captures the sense of community around here, this was it! Children dancing with grandmothers, teenagers taking over the front — no one needs a partner, no one even needs to know how to dance. You look up, you see whatever incarnation of local musicians has formed on stage this year; it might be “Blue Nectar,” “Tommy and the Sharks,” ”Local Heroes,” whatever they’re calling themselves, you know it will include many regulars; at least one Licastro brother and David Mahoney on drums. Highlights are the other local musicians that ebb in and out sharing the stage — maybe Janie Cribbs, Loraine Newland or Ro Purser lending their voices.

This year the street dance was schlocky, and the whole event seemed poorly attended, (the dance was maybe one-third its regular size) but even though smaller, not necessarily more intimate; it lacked community. How can you call this event “the community celebration of Whidbey Island’s rich arts heritage” with music and art outsourced from off island?

Nowadays with escalating ferry and gas prices and cutbacks in local jobs, it is more important than ever to shop locally, to patronize our local businesses and that includes musicians and artists!

This year was a farcical imitation of what was once a wonderful Island tradition.

Please, let’s put local art and music back into this event!

Kim Kelzer

Freeland