Good morning from the shoreline.

You’re one of more than 4,000 southeastern Connecticut locals reading this every Thursday. Thanks for choosing to be part of the Crew.

Here’s what I’ve surfaced this week.

In today’s issue: The Village Fair takes over the Borough Saturday · a Pulitzer winner plays 250 seats in Waterford · tie-dye and chalk art in New London · bonfires on the Pawcatuck after dark · a lobster bake that already sold out

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

The Blessing of the Fleet, shot from the Town Dock in Stonington Borough last Sunday.

START HERE

EDITOR’S PICKS

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 · 10AM–4PM

Wadawanuck Square · Stonington Borough

The COMO’s Village Fair is back for its 74th year, which makes it older than most of the businesses around the square. More than 50 local artists and crafters, food trucks, live music, kids’ games and prizes, sweet bread, floral sales, and the Stonington Free Library’s used book sale running alongside it. Park outside the Borough and walk in.

Plan it →

FRIDAY, JULY 31 · 8PM

Eugene O’Neill Theater Center · Waterford

Michael R. Jackson won the Pulitzer and the Tony for A Strange Loop, and Friday night he is playing the O’Neill’s Cabaret & Performance Conference in a room that seats about 250. The conference closes the next night. The Fellows Showcase runs tonight at 8 if you want the whole arc.

Plan it →

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1

Green & Golden Streets and Tox Brewing · New London

The Green & Golden Street Block Party runs 2 to 8pm with a chalk-art competition for ages 7 to 17 starting at 2pm, cash prizes, maker stations, face painting, murals, and vendors, rain or shine. Around the corner, Toxstock brings live music from noon to 8pm at Tox Brewing with DIY tie-dye from 2 to 5. Free to walk into; a $25 wristband gets you the tie-dye shirt, a first pour, and a color-changing cup.

Plan it →

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 · 7–10PM · FREE

Donahue Park, 8 Mechanic Street · Pawcatuck

The 24th River Glow floats bonfires down the Pawcatuck after dark, with live music from Alter Ego, steel drumming, fire juggling, circus acts, belly dancing, food vendors, and local artisans staged from Donahue Park. Admission is free; bring money for the food vendors. The event spans downtown Westerly and Pawcatuck, but the main staging is on CT side of the river. Rain date is Sunday.

Plan it →

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 · 8AM

Ocean Beach Park · New London

The 64th John & Jessie Kelley Half Marathon starts and finishes at Ocean Beach, with somewhere between 500 and 1,000 runners on the road through New London and Waterford. It is free to enter; you bring a food donation for the Gemma E. Moran Center. Run it or route around it, but know it is happening.

Plan it →

Some events listed are submitted by organizers or sponsors. We only feature things we’d genuinely recommend.

THE FULL RUNDOWN

Some food and drink picks come from organizers or sponsors. We only feature things we’d genuinely recommend.

ALSO WORTH YOUR EAR

Ethan Cash
Thu · 5pm · Saltwater Farm Vineyard · STONINGTON

Diva and the Playboys
Fri · 6:30pm · City of Groton Concerts in the Park · free, on the grass · GROTON

Luke & Mike
Fri · 6–9pm · Stonington Vineyards · $10 advance, $15 door, proceeds to Always Home · STONINGTON

Violet Theory
Fri · 5pm · Saltwater Farm Vineyard · STONINGTON

Jason Ingriselli
Sun · 3pm · Saltwater Farm Vineyard · STONINGTON

Full live-music list at wailingcity.com →
If you miss the full lineup, hit reply and let me know.

SHIP’S LOG

Saturday morning between 500 and 1,000 people will line up at Ocean Beach for a half marathon named after a man most of them never met. Worth knowing whose name is on the bib.

John J. Kelley grew up in this corner of Connecticut and spent most of his life in it. In 1957 he won the Boston Marathon, and then no American man won it again for eleven years. For most of the postwar era, if you were an American distance runner, you were running in a sport the rest of the world took more seriously than your own country did. Kelley won the U.S. national marathon championship eight times anyway, made two Olympic teams, and kept doing it while holding a full-time job.

Kelley taught English at Fitch High School in Groton. He was not a professional athlete, because in the 1950s and 1960s there was almost no such thing in distance running. There was no prize money at Boston, no shoe contract, no appearance fee. He graded papers, coached the cross-country team, and ran his mileage on the roads between New London and Mystic, past the same salt marshes you drive by now.

One of the boys on that cross-country team was Amby Burfoot. Burfoot ran with Kelley, trained the way Kelley trained, and in 1968 won the Boston Marathon himself, the next American to do it after his own high school coach. Then he spent decades as an editor at Runner’s World, telling the story of the sport to millions of people who had never heard of Groton.

Kelley kept running long after he stopped racing. He died in 2011. The road race at Ocean Beach carries his name and his wife Jessie’s, and it has now run 64 times.

And the race is free: you bring a food donation for the Gemma E. Moran Center and you run. It is a couple of loops of New London and Waterford on an August morning, the same kind of low-key race Kelley ran his whole life.

If you’re not running, go stand somewhere on the course around 8:30 and clap.

If you want to start running I suggest checking out Whaling City Run Club or One of One run club in Westerly.

SAVE THE DATE

MONDAY, AUGUST 3
The Full Moon Party at Stone Acres Farm moved to Monday at 6pm because of weather. Mystic Dead plays the Grateful Dead catalog in the field at 393 North Main Street, with food and drinks from 85th Day. Tickets are $28 plus tax on Resy, and the ones already bought roll over to the new date. If Monday feels far off, the same band is at Social Bar & Kitchen in New London Sunday at 4.

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 AND WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5
Tunes on the Dunes at Westerly Town Beach, 6 to 8pm and free: Amber Rose and The Renegades Monday, Cassandra Sings the Bluez Wednesday. Rain moves it to the Windjammer.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4
The 102nd Army Band of the Connecticut National Guard plays Summer Sounds at Mystic River Park by the drawbridge, 7pm, free.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5
Two free town concerts the same night: East Lyme’s Summer Concert Series at 6pm, and Waterford’s at Waterford Beach Park at 6pm. Pick the beach if you want the sunset over the marsh.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6
Mystic Fish Camp runs a lobster boil with two seatings, 5:30 and 7:30pm: whole lobster, corn, potatoes, hush puppies, a greeting cocktail, and a house-made ice cream sundae. Tickets on Eventbrite, and it’ll sell out.

THURSDAY–SATURDAY, AUGUST 6–8
The Preston Summer Carnival, about 25 minutes north of Mystic at Preston Community Park. Free admission and free parking, rides all three nights, food trucks, and live music at 7:30: Sunset Drive Thursday, American Honey Friday, Nick Bosse and the Northern Roots Saturday. Fireworks Friday at 9pm, and a car and truck cruise Saturday afternoon. Note that ride bracelets are not sold Friday, which is the night most families would pick.

SATURDAY–SUNDAY, AUGUST 8–9
The 68th Mystic Outdoor Art Festival, the oldest juried art show in the Northeast, takes over downtown Mystic. Close to 270 artists along more than a mile of the river, plus a Children’s Art Park and a performing arts stage in Mystic River Park. Free, both days, 10am to 6pm Saturday and 10am to 5pm Sunday. Heads up that Saturday overlaps with the Preston carnival’s afternoon, so you’re choosing.

COASTAL WEATHER

That’s your week. The Borough throws its 74th fair, a Pulitzer winner plays a barn, and somebody sets the Pawcatuck on fire on purpose.

Pick one thing off the list and get out the door.

Talk Thursday.