It appears no one has gone for a picnic lately at this table. It sits all alone, undisturbed, along the frozen river. No children are playing with a frisbee nearby. No dogs are merrily romping around. There are no charcoal grills set up, no scent of food cooking. There are no blankets set down in the grass nearby, and no one is nodding off in a lounge chair. The bowls of snacks and coolers filled with fizzy drinks are missing.
This is a picnic table covered with snow along a frozen
river. There are no waves lapping on the
shore, no one is slowly canoeing by, and the scent of greenery is absent. The buzzing insects are (thankfully) nowhere
to be found. And the silence is
deafening. No children. No games being played or athletes
competing. This is a picnic table
waiting for the “right” picnickers, and sadly none have come to enjoy
themselves.
 |
| In need of a picnic. |
Shall I tell you of my favorite picnic? It took place many, many years ago and now
exists only in my memory, the other participants having long since died. It was a very cold January day. The snow was much deeper--much, much
deeper!--than you see in the photo. We
packed the car up with snacks and food and hot tea in thermoses, and we set off
for a remote place, looking for our favorite picnic table.
We found it covered with snow, and we dug it out and cleared
it off. Then we dug out the stone fire
pit nearby. We could have scouted for
small dead standing trees for wood, but they would have taken too much time to
find, saw, and chop, and so we brought in our own wood. It was my job, as always, to start the fire,
which is not easy to do in the winter.
It took some doing, but I got a fine blaze going after a while.
A frisbee was produced by someone, and it was hilarious to
try to run through the snow to catch it.
I fell flat on my face several times.
But anytime we got too cold, we would stop by and warm ourselves at the
fire. I would add wood to it often to
make sure that we kept a good blaze going.
The funniest part might have been when someone decided to
try to dance in the snow. Others joined,
and soon we all looked ridiculous trying to do our “moves” in the deep
drifts. Then it was on to building
snowmen, and of course, someone had to build an alien-looking thing that might
have come straight from a 1960’s sci-fi novel.
We laughed and laughed.
Then we gathered around the fire and roasted weenies on
sticks. We dipped them in catsup that we
had brought and ate them hot off the sticks.
Then we roasted far too many marshmallows and ate them, too. We washed it all down with hot tea from the
thermoses. We sat around and talked for
a while, and then we sort of just stared at the fire and spoke every so often.
Eventually, a ranger came upon our camp to make sure
everything was alright. We assured him
it was, and he left after he decided the fire posed absolutely no danger. He smiled all along. I think he was happy to see people enjoying
themselves in the snow, spending many days himself outdoors in the winter.
I was happy, too. It
was a great day. I didn’t know how great
the day was at the time, and it would take many, many years for me to realize
what a gem of a day it was. Now it lives
only in my memory--happy people sitting around a raging fire in the dead of
winter. But I still remember as if it
were yesterday.
This picnic table needs a picnic. It needs one sooner rather than later. It needs laughter around a fire in the snow, the
memories stored forever--or as long as someone lives anyhow--in the minds of
those who danced around the fire.
