Farewell To Limestone City

DUKES FANS: It is the third week in August, and for more than half of my life this has been a special time. As a long-time teacher, it meant the rapidly approaching end to summer vacation and time to start planning for the new school year. I had always started making some plans before and throughout the summer-reading some new things I wanted to bring to the curriculum, seeing some films I would like to use, visiting some sites I could take students to either actually or virtually, and more. But this third week made it clear that school was only a few weeks away. There would soon be a week of teacher’s meetings, room setup, and professional development followed by orientation of new students, and then, right after Labor Day, the official start of a new school year. I liked that routine; it was known and comfortable. But what I enjoyed most about the third week in August was that for nearly 20 years it meant spending a week with my wife attending the amazing Limestone City Blues Festival in Kingston, Ontario. That was always joyous. Penny and I happened to see a newspaper article in 1998 about the 2nd Limestone City Festival while we were camping in upstate New York, so we booked a motel for the weekend in nearby Kingston just to hear a couple of my favorite artists who had been mentioned in the newspaper article. I was also curious about what a Canadian blues festival was like. We had a beautiful drive there across some lovely bridges and along The Thousand Islands, looking at Lake Ontario. We arrived in Kingston, and instantly fell in love with both the festival and the city. and the festival. We were hooked. It was a great city with an amazing array of restaurants, bookstores, galleries and museums. We stayed in motels in Kingston the first two years, and then we found Ivy Lea Provincial Park, some 30 miles outside of Kingston, where we camped for the ensuing years. With the exception of two years, every third week in August from 1998 to 2018 found us enjoying the natural beauty and urban life in and around Kingston and absolutely loving the festival. I had not realized that there was such a lively and talented blues scene throughout Canada, and I got to hear some wonderful performers who had gotten no airplay in the US. I also got to see some great US performers as well. And I really loved the way the entire city embraced the festival. There were free concerts on weekend afternoons, great paid evening concerts featuring three or four artists in the evening, and then all of the clubs and hotels in downtown Kingston featured blues and blues-based acts after the evening concerts for that entire weekend. It was a blues lover’s treasure of delights, and we were always excited to go. I went up to Kingston for two years after Penny died in 2018, and while it was hard, it was still a time of great music and great people. But the pandemic meant no travel there in 2021, so I have not been back since 2020. And sadly, I can go no more. The festival producers announced that the 2023 festival would be the last Limestone City Blues Festtival. A new festival is slated to begin in 2025, and it will be more of a world music festival, celebrating the ethnic and cultural diversity of The Limestone City. That makes sense, of course, and I sincerely hope the new festival can do for the city what The Limestone City Blues Fest did. And I may well visit in 2025. But right now I am both a little sad and grateful to be remembering the incredible times I had at The Limestone City Blues Festival in the wonderful little city of Kingston, Ontario. Thank you, Kingston. You provided me with so many experiences and helped keep my ears open. Thank you! (Here is a link to a piece I wrote several years ago about four of my favorite Canadian blues performers: http://dukesofdestiny.blogspot.com/2017/09/o-canada.html)