Beach Bites
BY Emily Russell
Ending on a high note
Summer concerts still rockin’ the coast
Want to enjoy great music and beautiful summer weather at the same time? Take a look at some of the free outdoor concerts happening in the Wrightsville Beach area in August.
Mayfaire Music on the Town
Mayfaire Town Center behind Linens n’ Things 6 to 9 p.m.
August 3 The 360 Degrees
August 10 Mako Station
August 17 Tommy B. and the Stingers
August 24 Mirage
August 31 Michelle and the Midnight Blues
For more information call (910) 256-5131 or visit www.mayfairetown.com
Airlie Gardens Concert Series
On Airlie Oak Lawn parking off-site at the Galleria parking center 6 to 8 p.m. Free to members $8 admission charge for non-members $2 for children ages 6 to 12. Children under 6 get in free. Tickets sold at the gate.
August 3 Sea Pans
August 17 Buddy Skipper and the Jetty Jumpers
For more information call (910) 798-7700 or visit www.airliegardens.org
Downtown Sundown Summer
Riverfront Park in front of the U.S. Courthouse 5:30 p.m. until dark.
August 3 Vertigo (Tribute to U2) Opening: Spencer Rush
For more information call (910) 763-7349 or visit www.wilmingtondowntown.com
Sounds of Summer
Hugh MacRae Park August 9 6:30 to 8 p.m. Rain date is August 16.
August 9 Andrew Thielen Big Band
For more information call (910) 791-8070 or visit www.wect.com
Pleasure Island Summer Concert Series
Fort Fisher Military Recreation Area 6 to 8 p.m. No coolers or pets.
August 17 Category 4
For more information call (910) 458-8434 or visit www.pleasureislandnc.org
Cup runneth over
The Grainger Cup travels to England
On May 22 1951 Isaac B. Grainger stepped aboard the Queen Mary in New York Harbor ready to represent the U.S. contingent of the United States Golf Association at a meeting with the Royal and Ancient Saint Andrews Golf Club in Scotland. Their goal: to unify the rules of golf in Europe and America bringing golfers in both places closer together. Little did Mr. Grainger know that 56 years later a trophy bearing his name would be making a similar journey with a similar purpose.
This trophy a giant silver cup sporting a distinguished hint of tarnish is called the Grainger Cup. It will be carried from Wilmington Mr. Grainger’s native city to our sister city Doncaster England by the 12 Junior league golfers from New Hanover County competing in the Isaac B. Grainger International Match Cup Play Championship (commonly called the Grainger Cup) on August 8-10. The championship is a Ryder Cup-style match between the teams of Wilmington and Doncaster hosted in alternating cities every two years. The fourth tournament will take place when the golfers travel to Doncaster this August.
The championship is a celebration of international fellowship and cooperation commemorating Isaac B. Grainger’s 1951 voyage to St. Andrews. It is also a testament to Grainger himself a lifelong lover of Junior golf who died in 1999 at the age of 104. Jake Hunt the championship’s grand architect and a Wilmingtonian himself was a friend of Mr. Grainger. “I didn’t want his memory to just go by the wayside ” Mr. Hunt says.
The tournament is entirely nonprofit and the money that sends the kids overseas is raised through private donations. Signature donators are PPD General Electric and American Fire Technologies. The Pine Valley Ladies’ Golf Association has also hosted a fundraiser and in-house tournament for the Championship.
For more information on the Grainger Cup contact Jake Hunt at (910) 632-9328 or (910) 622-5253.
Wild about wahines
East Coast Wahines Championship
The East Coast Wahines Championship unites women from all around the country through their love of surfing. Though many of the women are local past contestants have come from places as diverse as Florida Rhode Island Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The 11th annual championship will take place on the Wrightsville beach strand near the Surf Suites hotel on August 18 and 19 and will feature female surfers of all ages and skill levels catching waves and just plain having a good time.
Interested wahines can choose between shortboard longboard bodyboard or novice divisions where they will compete against women of similar age. For girls 10 and under there’s a Guppy division — Guppies all get trophies and parents are welcome to help them in the water.
Preliminaries take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on August 18 and finals take place from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on August 19. An awards ceremony is held shortly after the end of the finals and trophies and bags of free gifts from sponsors such as Billabong are awarded to the top six women in each division. There is also a raffle where a surfboard hammock and bike will be given away to lucky winners. The event draws more than 180 competitors and focuses on fun and friendly competition. Grab your boards wahines!
For more information visit www.eastcoastwahines.com or e-mail Anne Weber at
anne@eastcoastwahines.com.
Here’s mud in your eye
Fifth annual Mud Day on August 11
The Children’s Museum of Wilmington will celebrate its fifth annual Mud Day on August 11 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For an $8 entry fee per person you and your child can have all sorts of good (if not exactly clean) fun; from mud pies to entire mud baths Mud Day celebrates everything mud. Bulldozers called “Mud Movers” churning vast amounts of earthy goo park outside the museum and fuel the fun within: messier activities such as mud painting and mud pools take place in the courtyard of the museum while cleaner activities take place inside.
The museum’s top muck machinists create many varieties of mud for your child’s entertainment: chief among them are “magic” mud made with cornstarch in a fashion similar to gravy; “clear” mud which isn’t mud at all but a clear synthetic crystalline substance; and regular old mud which the museum makes from sand peat moss various mulches and a special secret ingredient.
Stephanie McKenzie associate director of education and programs at the museum thinks Mud Day is a blast. She enjoys watching the children react. “At first you can see them thinking … ‘Wait a minute Mom told me not to play in the mud!’” McKenzie says. After that initial shock however the children loosen up and smiles and laughter abound as children get unabashedly grubby and explore their creative sides. The museum provides outdoor showers to clean them off but all the same recommends coming prepared with towels and a change of clothes.
Mud Day is a great opportunity to let your kid be a kid or even find your own inner child. For more details call the Children’s Museum at (910) 254-3534 or visit its Web site at
www.playwilmington.org.
Kids at play
Playing Together exhibit at the Cape Fear Museum
Rainy day? Don’t pull out the video games quite yet! The Cape Fear Museum’s Playing Together exhibit is fun for all ages and it’s free with the price of admission. Simply travel upstairs to the North Gallery and enter a multicultural world of games from around the globe from familiar names like checkers and tic-tac-toe to the more exotic: Senet an ancient Egyptian pastime and reputedly King Tutankhamun’s favorite game is one of the many features that may be new to young children along with mancala and the Chinese game Boc-Tin. A section focusing on winning and losing is also included in the exhibit as well as an area called the House of Cards where visitors can choose any of more than 50 modern board games to play and examine. Also included is a giant chess board spread out on the floor. The board itself is 10 by 10 feet square and the tallest pieces are almost 3 feet high taller than some of the children who play with them!
Playing Together is a traveling exhibit and it will be located at Cape Fear Museum from June 19 through September 3. It was created and built in the Children’s Museum at Memphis and has been traveling around the country for 13 years.
For more information visit www.capefearmuseum.com or call (910) 798-4350.