Art and Music Festival, Duck Races in Week Ahead

Maplewood marks Monday, Memorial Day, with a Memorial Day parade, service, and duck races. Events begin at 9 a.m. when the parade moves along Maplewood Avenue. 

Weather permitting, the pool will be open on Monday.

After several days off, district students return to school just in time for the Columbia High School Art and Music Festival on Thursday. 

Saturday will see the very popular Magic Club perform twice, once at 11 a.m. and again at 1 p.m.  Both performances are in the Black Box Theatre at CHS. 

The South Orange Public Library is closed Monday. On Tuesday,  local author Allen Barra discusses his new book "Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays" at 7:30 p.m.

Plan ahead for June 9. The Durand-Hedden House hosts: Amazing Mushrooms 

In warm wet weather mushrooms pop up overnight in our yards in a fascinating array of colors and shapes. What are they, really?  In this 2:00 p.m. talk a member of the NJ Mycological Association will demystify these amazing living things which are part of the Kingdom of Fungi. In some ways, mushrooms are more closely related to animals than plants, taking in oxygen for their digestion and metabolism and "exhaling" carbon dioxide. The part of the fungus that we see is only the “fruit” of the organism, the rest of which is hidden underground. Mushrooms grow from spores, not seeds, and a single mature mushroom will drop as many as 16 billion!   Long known to be a source of powerful nutrients, we largely ignore this healthy food.  Yet, more adventurous people are learning from experts how to forage for edible mushrooms in the wild – even in New Jersey!