Monthly Archives: June 2025

A Tremendously Successful 2025 Lyon Park Spring Fair!

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By Paul Showalter

The 99th Spring Fair was a sunny experience of joy, sugar, and fun. 

Setup for the Fair began on Friday with several people (David Grahn and Peter Zirnite) bringing all the games, tables and supplies out of the basement before the torrential rainstorm hit. Darcy Rosenbaum (the Spring Fair chair) and son Benton and husband John worked late into the night prepping the center for a day’s worth of fun.

Saturday morning started early for a bunch of us, to make sure the day went off without a hitch. And it was a spectacular day. The sun was shining; the park was full of kids playing games and bouncing in the moon bounce; cookies and other baked goods were selling quickly at the Woman’s Club bake sale; the kitchen was pushing out Danville Street hot dogs, Troy’s pizza, fresh pasta, and lots lemonade; lions and tigers were painted on faces; popcorn, popsicles, and cotton candy were sold; and prizes were exchanged for prize tickets. We played numerous games of “Cake-A-Bout” in the sun, with kids winning baked goods (I served as the event’s emcee).

The Rosenbaum’s homemade games were a big hit again this year. The “Bull Ringer” – “Hole in One” – “Frog Flinger” and the reimagined “Duck Pond” fascinated the kids once again.

This event, like every event at Lyon Park, could not happen without a large group of volunteers. The Danville Street Crew (Mark Trachtman, Charlie Wall, and Sharon Showalter) staffed the kitchen and fed lots of hungry kids. Many other neighbors stepped in to help and it was appreciated. 

We had more than twelve high school and college volunteers with us on Friday and Saturday. We even had a crew of Long Branch Elementary school students (Alex and Helen Peters, Benton Rosenbaum, Alexys & Alejandro Linder, and Niam and Dhilan Bahl) running games and painting faces (Their parents even pitched in to help). All volunteers worked tirelessly throughout the day to make sure everyone had fun—and we appreciate their efforts. 

Special thanks to Tyler Hawkins, Theo Roiniotis, and Tabitha Ricketts for sticking around and helping with the cleanup. They packed away every game, tent, and table. They even carried everything into the basement. An extra special thanks goes to my wife Sharon, for not only helping with setup on Friday night, but working all day in the kitchen, and cleaning until the last box was packed away in the “little blue pickup truck.”

Next year, we celebrate our 100th Spring Fair. For our signature event to be a success, we need more people to be involved in producing the Fair. Please step up and offer to help. We need you. Reach out to LyonParkEvents@gmail.com if you are interested.

If you have a rising sophomore, junior or senior who wants to volunteer in our community, have them reach out to LyonParkEvents@gmail.com. We have many volunteer opportunities during the summer and fall. 

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Team Burns Trash Walk

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By Tabitha Ricketts

If you’ve taken a stroll around Lyon Park on a Sunday evening, you may have crossed paths with the Burns family—on foot and on skates—out and about on a unique family mission: to enjoy the nice weather, and clean up our neighborhood. 

Always an active family, Kelly and Josh Burns have long embraced the tradition of a family walk after dinner. As often as weather and schedules allow, Micah and Levi strap on their helmets and grab their skates, scooters, or bikes to keep pace with their parents for a neighborhood stroll. One evening last spring, then-six-year-old Micah suggested an update to the tradition: picking up trash.

“Team Burns Trash Walks” are now a regular part of the family routine. The whole family sets out together on their usual routes through the neighborhood, sometimes deviating to higher-traffic streets with a higher trash yield. Each member of the family carries a plastic bag and hunts down scraps of litter like a lightly competitive game of “I Spy,” with extra cheers of victory for larger pieces of trash like a water bottle or chunk of styrofoam. The walks aren’t terribly long, but they have no problem filling up their bags, sometimes redistributing the trash if someone runs out of room. 

There are a few rules: they don’t touch cigarette butts, for example. The kids are careful of traffic, even when they spot a choice piece of trash just across the road. Navigating trash pick-up on wheels isn’t the easiest task, either, although the kids bounce up from each collection with limitless energy. And the task isn’t without its frustrations—the Burns were upset to actively witness littering in our neighborhood, and on Earth Day of all days! But the family keeps at it with good cheer and open hearts, folding their care for our community and the environment into their routines and core values. 

Not every family walk is a trash walk, but Team Burns is out cleaning up our streets more weeks than not. Sometimes the trash walk is a given; sometimes it’s specifically requested by one of the kids. After each walk, the Burns hold out their bags and survey their haul—bags full of good deeds and community care. It’s not their trash, but it IS their neighborhood—just like it’s all of ours. Micah recognized that at just six years old, and prompted a new family tradition to give back. Her example is an inspiration for all of us, the community, to take pride in our beautiful Lyon Park. Maybe this summer Team Burns won’t be the only team taking regular trash walks—I know you’ll see me out there!  

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Restaurant Vibes: East West Coffee Wine

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By Philippa Kirby and Philip Conklin

As its name suggests, East West Coffee Wine serves food and beverages rooted in the ‘east’ (in this case, Turkey and the middle east) and the ‘west’ (Europe and the Americas) with Turkish cuisine at the heart of the experience. This family owned and operated restaurant offers an inviting menu with fresh flavors, farm to table food quality, and a welcoming environment with a kind and attentive service staff.

Located on Highland at Wilson in Clarendon (with a sibling cafe in Tyson’s Corner), East West is both a hybrid fast casual (order at the counter) and a “be seated” (and wait staff will take your order) venue. The cafe features a coffee/espresso bar, a small but impressive pastry case, a wine bar and an expansive food menu with something for everyone to enjoy. When eating in (and socializing, working or studying), you can enjoy either the spacious sunny dining room with a relaxed atmosphere, or the very comfortable outdoor patio set apart from street noise.

On a bright and sunny Sunday morning, we relaxed outside under umbrellas on the patio. The all-day menu features pages and pages of beautifully photographed menu items evoking a culinary travelogue. We had fun poring over and discussing the array of options. A centerpiece of the menu is a Turkish breakfast featuring a literal buffet brought to your table and demands a committed team of hungry diners to finish. Though tempted, we passed on the Turkish breakfast and ordered instead a falafel salad, an adona (a ground lamb kebab sandwich), a vegetable omelet, and French toast, plus an order of spiced French fries for the table. We also ordered individual glasses of delicious Turkish tea served in simple, elegant glasses. 

The food arrived quickly, simultaneously, and freshly made. The falafel was tender and crisp and was served on a bed of fresh, nicely dressed greens and veggies. The adona featured well-seasoned ground lamb with a nice char and a moist interior, while the omelet (which looked more like a frittata than a typical American omelet) was veggie rich and tasty. Finally, the French toast was just like homemade—in the best way—with a light, crispy exterior and soft, custardy interior.

And, of course, we had to order a selection of baklava to finish. The small, rectangular baklava familiar to most Americans was top-notch, but we also had a delicious Turkish baklava with ice cream sandwiched in the middle (one member of our party found this to be nothing short of amazing).

Our order explored some of both the east and the west sides of the menu, but we barely scratched the surface of the menu’s broad array of options (such as: acuka, gambos al ajillos, chicken tenders, nachos, gyros and homemade spaghetti)* representing many different cultural traditions and enough choices to satisfy most every dietary requirement and preference. We thoroughly enjoy the experience and our meal at East West and had the impression that other diners (a diverse mix of families, couples, and seniors) were just as happy dining amidst the warm, welcoming hospitality of East West Coffee Wine.

East West Coffee Wine (3101 Wilson Blvd.): Hours of operation are 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. daily. Phone number is 571–800–3905. Visit the website: www.ewcafe.com for more information. 

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