Party Pooped

Last time Tommy Keefer visited the annual Celebrate Mount Pleasant Festival, he says via e-mail, “I had a dream.

“I imagined one day I would actually live in Mount Pleasant and would invite my friends over for Mojitos and we would all walk up to the Festival and eat and have a good time and then maybe go home and drink some more.”

Last month, inspired almost solely by his dream, Keefer moved to a place on Harvard Street NW within spitting distance of the festival location. By the Friday before this year’s bash, scheduled for June 4, he had welcomed his girlfriend home after six months abroad and stocked a minibar with mojito mix. Everything was perfect, he says. Then the fest was canceled.

Well, sort of. On the traditional first Sunday of June, instead of the usual blockslong bash humming with live music and brimming with food vendors, Mount Pleasant residents were treated to a small community fair and booths distributing health information.

Festival director Robert Frazier, who has produced the past nine fetes, cites time constraints for the demise of this year’s festival; when his workload unexpectedly increased, he wasn’t able to find enough sponsors to help defray the costs. On neighborhood Internet groups, residents expressed their disappointment and moved on.

Keefer took it a little harder. “Obviously, I didn’t have a party,” he says. “I don’t even think I got out of bed that day.”