Small Town Summer Concerts

Each Wednesday evening, in the summer, there is a concert in the Pioneer Park Pavilion in Florence. Local people of all ages show up with drinks, picnics, chairs, dogs, etc. to enjoy the music and visit. The Senior Citizen organization even barbeques and sells hot dogs, hamburgers and popcorn at very low prices.

Tonight a local old fashioned country gospel group, The Coffee Family, provided a rousing selection of bluegrass, and other styles of gospel music to a happy crowd, in spite of wind and spitting rain (the rain never got to the serious stage but we did get some wind blown spatters where we were sitting in our own camp chairs under the pavilion).

Jim and Star Coffee, their son, Mark, and daughter, Grace play many instruments, including guitars, bass, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and tambourine, as well as singing. They even wrote some of the pieces that they belted out. They used a microphone and amplifier, but had powerfull voices that could probably be heard without assistance. They travel to concerts around the country and you can often see their motor home parked next to their home on Eight Mile Creek where it flows out of the Pikes Peak Massif, north of Florence, on it's way to the Arkansas River.

Joe and I so enjoyed their music, and it was also fun to see all of the expressive faces of our neighbors; a great place to people watch. While the adults sat and listened (and some did needlework), the little ones tended to run, crawl, climb and ride bikes all over the park.

I wish I could provide some of the Coffee's music for your enjoyment, but at least her are some photos I took. Excuse the fuzziness, my little Canon Elph doesn't seem to take very clear digital zoom photos any more, and my tremor is getting worse. I seem to do better with the Canon Power Shot Pro, but it is too big to carry in my pocket, and I am still figuring out how to use it.

These concerts are one of the benefits of living in this small town; we have lots of community events throughout the year, based on history/antiques, art, music and holidays. Little did we guess, when we moved here 21 years ago, how this community was going to develop into such a great place to live and/or visit.