Flowermart in Baltimore
Photo credits: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Bright sun and cool breezes were the honored guests as Bryn Mawr third-graders took up the ribbons of the Maypole and danced open Baltimore’s Flowermart Friday.
True devotees do not admit to there ever having been bad weather in the 93 years of the festival in Mount Vernon Square. But the first day of this year’s two-day event was particularly auspicious.
“Everybody is so happy,” gushed Josie Fraley from underneath a straw hat covered with flowers and the Flowermart’s signature treat: lemons with peppermint sticks.
She and friend Mary Sheppard, who was wearing an equally elaborately decorated hat, were stopped often by camera carriers asking to take a picture. “I feel like a celebrity,” said Sheppard.
The women were headed to the crab cake vendor for lunch. “That’s the other reason you come to Flowermart,” said Fraley, who’d already made her flower purchases.
Eartha Harrison’s towering bonnet executed the Flowermart theme – sunflowers – to the nines. And the brim was painted with a black band that represented Charles Street.
“Somebody made, but it is my job to wear it,” she said from her booth representing Chimes and selling craft items made by its adult clients.
That kind of sums up the pleasures of Flowermart, where your only job is to wear a hat.
