Spring came early to Forsyth Park on Friday, with balmy temperatures, a crystalline blue sky and lots and lots of green.
The organizers of Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade jump-started the week’s worth of events leading up to March 16’s massive parade with the annual greening of the park’s fountain.
Sharon Cummings, from Des Moines, Iowa, and her friend Laurie Laycock, of Batavia, N.Y., were among the nearly 700 onlookers circling the fountain for the ceremony.
And that was just by luck.
“We just happened to be in town at the right time and see it on a calendar of events” Cummings said. “But how do they get it out after they put it in?’
Good question.
“It just fades out over time,” said Terence Eiland, one of three Savannah city workers who helped mix the green food coloring into the many watering cans used to pour the concentrate into the fountain’s clear waters. “And it doesn’t stain the fountain or anything else.”
Legend has it that the ceremony dates to 1984, when Park and Tree Director Don Gardner suggested the city hold its own coloration ceremony in response to vandals coloring six fountains throughout the city.
Many long-time participants in Friday’s sun-splashed crowd said they thought this was the biggest crowd ever to attend the ceremony.
Gregory “Baby Boy” Pinckney, another city worker, agreed. And he should know.
“I’ve been doing this for 25 years,” said Pinckney, a 26-year veteran of the Park and Tree Department. “Every year, more and more people come out. And with every year I’ve done it, I don’t remember a bad one.”