Nothing says 4th of July like a picnic, one of my wife’s favorite things to do.  Picnics, for me,  date back to childhood, particularly 4th of July reunions with the family.  We were either at my Great Aunt and Uncle’s house on Simonton Lake, or at an Oxbow Park pavilion.  All my grandparents, parents, cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, and ants were in attendance.  The ants were actually not welcome, they just showed up expecting to be fed.  We’d play softball, croquet, badminton, toss a football, Jarts, and go for a swim or a boat ride.  They were always very memorable get-togethers, that became less appealing to attend as I got older.  One of my uncles would spend all day at the grill drinking beer and cooking hot dogs and hamburgers.  While he was getting toasted, he’d also toast your buns.  We didn’t congregate very often, but it served the years before weddings and funerals brought us all together.

While I was, of course, content with staying home for the 4th, my wife had a much grander plan in mind.  (see Post #165)  She was in the kitchen preparing a Kidney bean salad, and grilling chicken.  She has a lot of energy, even after our one-hour walk/run with the dogs earlier.  Before we started our stroll this morning, we sat together and decided on a location to do a picnic.  She was not going to allow me to be a homebody on the 4th!  I found Punch Bowl Falls on the map, about an hour away on Eagle Creek.  It’s a popular Oregon destination, right up there with Multnomah Falls and Crater Lake, so I felt quite confident that no one else would think of going there for their day-off.   They’d probably want to stay home and watch TV.  She got out one of our many picnic kits, in this case a back-pack, loaded up the cooler with some adult beverages, and we were ready to hit the road.

As they watched her pack up, our two schnauzers got that “are you leaving us again?” look on their faces.  They weren’t tired enough after their walk this morning, and there was plenty of room in the car for them to G…O – we spell it out, since they know the word, and then don’t get overly excited.  It was then time  for the dogs, the wife, and the homebody to head-off to the Punch Bowl for our 4th of July picnic.  She even mixed together some Lemonade Punch, spiked  generously with vodka, to add to the picnic festivities.  My wife’s assessment of me is accurate, you know, I can be a happy homebody, but to an even greater degree I’m certainly not an outdoors-man, anxious to take a hike in the woods.  I am “condo man,” who prefers very little yard work and an air-conditioned environment.  Even my mother told my wife that as a kid “Mike wouldn’t mind sitting at home working on a sewing card, while his sister would come home with a black eye.”  Apparently, there were no sexist stereotypes in my family.  Maybe I should take up sewing again in retirement!

Besides family picnics, I’ve certainly attended and organized my share of company picnics.  These were events that no one really wanted to attend, but the perception was that if you worked for a “bad” company, they didn’t have a Holiday party and a picnic every year.  If you were employed by a “good” company and had a picnic, then it was an intrusion on an employee’s weekend time, and logically they should probably be paid for attending.  Employee committees, designed to let the boss off the hook, went through this dilemma every year, so they tried to come up with enough door prizes to make attendance worthwhile.  Those that had to work were paid overtime or given extra time off, and someone usually delivered picnic food to the station.  Regardless of what you did as an employer, it wasn’t enough!

When I worked for WISH-TV in Indianapolis, I referred to their employee outings as “WISH-nics.”  You “wished” you didn’t have to go, but if you didn’t, you were talked about.  I would always try to make an appearance, and duck-out as quick as possible.  I don’t recall having picnics at prior stations where I worked, but I’ve probably just blocked them out of my mind.  One of the worst company picnics that I can recall, was done by my Dad’s company.  We did not go, because I think he felt the same way about company parties that I do.  It turned out to be one of the best decisions of his life, as hundreds of people got sick.  I remember playing in our yard and hearing ambulance sirens screaming in the distance as they traveled back and forth from the Emergency Room.  It was more disturbing than air-raid or tornado sirens, especially after we discovered what was going on.  The problem turned out to be bad potato salad from a local bakery.  Ironically, my dad’s company made Alka-Seltzer, but “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” was not enough “relief” to counter the nasty effects of food poisoning.  I don’t think anyone died,but I doubt that they ever enjoyed potato salad again, or attended company picnics.  I have always referred to it as the Miles Sick-nic!

As I think about hiking and picnics. I remember one afternoon when we lived in Austin, Texas, climbing through the Barton Creek Greenbelt.  This unique area covered over seven miles of limestone cliffs, dense foliage, and shallow bodies of water.  We could easily access it from our apartment, and the dogs would gladly G…O.  My wife had packed a picnic, as we searched far and wide for the perfect spot to enjoy the food she had laboriously prepared.  At last, we settled on a location that had a beautiful view, but it was also precarious.  We realized after we got settled, that there was a sharp drop of several hundred feet just off to the edge of our picnic blanket.  I typically eat quickly, but the thought of sliding down that hill made me rush even faster.  I had a death grip on a small tree nearby, as I also tried to get the dogs settled.  We called it a “Cliff-nic,” and ever since have tried to find flat, level spots to enjoy our meals.

One of our first weekend dates involved a picnic.  We drove down to Bloomington, Indiana, where I had gone to school.  I had brought along a gift, her first Limoges box. (See Post #146)  I think that every time she prepares a picnic, she expects a gift.  It’s probably why we picnic so often!  There’s been Symphony on the Prairie, on the beach in Maui, on the Oregon coast at Haystack Rock, and every time we go into wine country.  We’ve done the Gypsy Picnic in Austin, where no packing was necessary, but rather you sampled from a variety of food truck vendors.  Our dog Tinker especially enjoyed our regular picnics at Rudy’s (See Post #133).  Once again, we didn’t have to cook or bring a “pic-a-nic basket,” as Yogi the Bear called it.  They had a grassy picnic grounds behind the restaurant, and the dogs could join us at the table for Texas BBQ.   We also tried the Picnic House Restaurant here in Portland, Oregon, hoping to get that picnic experience without all the hard work of frying chicken and marinating Kidney Bean Salad.

I think I spotted us in the Georges Seaurat painting, “Sunday in the Park with George,” that has also become a popular Broadway Show.  We were the couple on a picnic blanket, by the lake, with our dogs.  The painting captures the romantic aspects of the picnic fantasy that my wife is always trying to attain.  I’m usually too distracted to share in this daydream because of the delicious spread that she packs.  I probably should bring a gift on our next outing, but they can be so spontaneous, like yesterday.   Surprisingly, there was very little traffic, and we were easily able to find a parking spot right by a picnic table at Punch Bowl Falls.  There were a lot of people along the narrow two-mile trail that leads to the falls.  It was a bit precarious, “Cliff-nic like,” with cables embedded in the rock to serve as hand rails, in those washed-out areas where a stumble might lead to a deadly fall down the side of a rocky hill.  We wisely waited, this time, until the hike was completed to enjoy our picnic lunch.

Even though I had to spend a lot of time outdoors, it was an enjoyable and memorable 4th of July.  Though disappointed, we decided that we were both too tired to stay up late to see the fireworks.  I have to say that this morning I’m as confused as ever on what day it is?  – with the 4th of July falling in the middle of the week.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to go to work like my wife did, as I’ve comfortably resumed my homebody lifestyle, with the exception of lunch with a friend today and a stop at the dry cleaners.  For me, living the retirement life without the hassles of health and financial problems is certainly, at this point, a picnic in the park!

 

 

 

 

“Sunday  in the Park with George

Fried Chicken and Potato Salad

 

 

 

Gypsy Picnic – Food Trailers Austin

Yogi Bear, talked in rhymes  pic-a-nic basket I’m smarter than the av-er-age bear

Picnic House Restauratnb