South End Library's Holiday Party Offered Home-cooked Dinner by John Hampton, Great Jazz Holiday Music by Pat Loomis and Friends and a Long Line of Celebrants Who Came to Enjoy Food, Friends, Music and Cheer

Each year, the lines are longer, the holiday meal more tasty, and the music better than ever. That's the story of the annual holiday party sponsored by the staff of the South End library to celebrate religious and secular good cheer between the book stacks, with the long library tables pushed aside to accommodate the musicians and instruments of Pat Loomis and his Friends, instead lined up to offer a delicious array of Southern-style dishes. “Next year, it’ll have to be someone else,” announced John Hampton, the husband of library staffer Carol Glass who has valiantly manned the stove for many years to produce the feast. His health is not what it used to be, so this year’s meal for the library’s party was his last. A long line of expectant diners stretched all the way into the Children’s Department, and included several reporters for local papers.

Loomis's band outperformed itself with what otherwise would have been old standards of the holiday season but, instead, offered the appreciative audience their fine jazz and blues versions of it. Drummer Zeke Martin did a spectacular job, as did Loomis himself on the alto-sax, his son Antonio on guitar and Daniel Day on bass.

Happy holidays to all.