Promise of Picnics

 I love to picnic. As a child my favorite part of summer was having my bologna and ketcup sandwich with my friends outside at our kid-sized wooden green, yellow and orange picnic table. The BEST picnics however happened when we had a barn party. My dad (with some help) built a HUGE garage that looked like a barn. The basement was a garage and the upstairs would someday house my dad's wood workshop. In the meantime the upstairs was a wonderfully spacious room--perfect for parties. The centerpiece of this room was a picnic table hand crafted by my dad. It was a traditional picnic table- a long rectangle stained a reddish hue. The picnic table held many a feast, butter melting off of sweet corn cobs, trails of mustard squirted from juicy hot dogs and burgers from the grill. Family members now long gone feasted here--Grandmama sat right here, Pepere right there...the names go on. The memories written in the fading stain, the cracks widening as the table dried with age--grayish planks showing through. The picnic table saw many years of family summer feasting.

Sadly the picnic table retired years ago and my dad sold it. No more family picnics or barn parties- my parents moved to a new house, I moved away and grandparents and aunts and uncles had passed on. 

 Last spring I had the opportunity to peruse my mom's old photo albums and I came across photos of these old barn parties...oddly enough it coincided with the arrival of picnicing weather. As I pondered these sweet memories with a picnic table center piece my heart desired to give my kids a similar anchor. So last year for our 12th anniversary I asked my dad to make us our own center piece-- our own picnic table to create memories on. My dad honored honored my request. He took his time--wood has always yielded its secrets to my dad-he listens and waits patiently to the whispers of oak and pine, he honors their dreams of life after tree--memorials to the life before--with promises of a new life ahead. So my dad hand picked logs, placed them in his saw mill and made planks. The planks spent half the summer drying in the sun. 

 
Midsummer the frame arrived in pieces. He assembled it and left it to dry in the sun. As the wood baked the frame became an imaginary place- a new jungle gym, no a pirate ship, no a bridge to keep daring children above the hot lava bubbling below. I smile at the memory making at the picnic table, no food or parties yet and already the memories are written in the wood.
 
 

The picnic table made its debut at the end of summer. We had our first family picnic--a feast in the setting sunshine...which ended quickly due to us being swarmed by millions of flying ants...yes flying ants all over our neighborhood coming from the ground...all over us ...our food...we retreated. (hehe adventures in picnicing)
 

Despite our failed first picnic the table was ready just in time for Gabe and Jaden's birthday party.

 It spent fall with us as we did our school work in the last warm rays of sun. Winter it hibernated beneath a blanket of snow and ice. Summer came and went a week and a half ago. (really I am just kidding--that week was a tease of summer to come-- I hope.) We had our first picnic of the season--a pizza party with the Okinawa Johnsons...13 cousins making memories at the picnic table. (It even came with misquitoes!)