I know it's been a while since I made a blog entry so here is one I enjoyed remembering. My brother Buck contributed some of his memories, too.
My father worked for a company that had several annual events: a Christmas party for kids with Santa handing out gifts, and a company picnic. The picnic is what I remember most.
The morning of the picnic, a large stake body truck would pull up to the house. It was loaded with huge sacks of peanuts, kegs of birch beer, door prizes, and other things that I cannot quite remember. All of us kids would pile onto the truck for the ride to picnic park. I think it was in Andalusia, Bucks County, but it may have been in different parks throughout the years. It's not something a kid would remember. The trip to the picnic park was always a lot of fun. I remember picking up several other men's kids and by the time we got to the park, the back of truck was really crowded.
My brother's, Buck, memories are somewhat the same as mine, but since he was a year and a half older, he remembers more I do. For instance, the men were always in a good mood on the morning of the picnic. They would holler back and forth to each other while loading the truck with food items, paper plates, wooden spoons and forks, mustard, sauerkraut, and all the other things needed for the picnic. Everyone on our street knew something important was going on. If a woman walked up the street, one of the men would shout to my father, "hey, Howard, get off the sidewalk, you're taking up too much room." Or, another man would shout, "Magee, you're ugly." It was all great fun and the boys especially loved it.
Once we got to the park, we all separated and met up with friends from years past. The day's events included hundred yard dashes, peanut sack racks, three-legged races, pie eating contests with smaller sized pies, and boys against men races. My one brother, who was 10 or 12 at the time, ran against one of Dad's friends and was determined to beat him. He was running so fast, he almost tripped but he did beat him. Everyone cheered him on to beat the older man. The pie eating contests were always great fun. The pies were mostly blueberry and they had to be eaten without spoons or forks. That meant your mouth did all the work and your face got smeared all over with blueberry juice. Fun to do and even more fun to watch!
One year, I hung around with this girl about my age, (I cannot remember her name now) and we entered all the races and contests together. After eating everything we wanted, we were just walking around. Eventually, we came to the area in the park where all the women were sitting at picnic tables chatting. The girl looked straight ahead and noticed a group of women talking, she said, "I cannot stand that woman." I asked her what woman was that, and she pointed to my mother. I was shocked because my mother was always gregarious, outgoing, and friendly with most everyone. I turned to her and said, "that's my mother." She was so embarrassed that I didn't see her for the rest of the day. That's the first person I met that didn't like my mother. It's also the first time I cared about someone else's opinion.
Once the dancing started, we would sit on the edge of the stage, or lean against the walls if there was no longer any room on the stage, and watch the adults dance. As my sister got older, she longed to dance but there weren't any boys her age there. The music was really different in those days compared to what we have now. Lots of music made for slow dancing, and fast tunes for jitterbugging. This was in the days before the mashed potato, the twist, and other dances where you didn't have to hold on to each other. I also remember the polka music. Kids would always join in on the polka dances because it didn't matter if you knew the steps, we just skipped around and had so much fun doing it.
After the dancing, it was time for the door prize drawings. All the adults were given a ticket when they entered the park for the door prize drawing held at the end of the day. The look on our mother's face was priceless as she waited for her number to be called out. She always hoped to get called early enough to get a good prize, but the most she ever won was a can opener. We all knew she was disappointed but she never said anything.
Too soon, the picnic ended and there was no truck to ride home. We'd all walk down to the bus stop tired, dirty, but mostly happy, and ready for the long ride home. Unfortunately, most of the men were drunk by that time from the free-flowing beer provided at the picnic. They also probably supplemented that with other brews they personally brought.
I enjoyed the company picnics each year but I have can't remember when or why I stopped going. Perhaps the company could no longer afford them or maybe I just grew out of them. My memories are of having lots of fun and that feeling of being pleasantly tired.
