Company Picnic

I have hazy memories of a couple of company picnics when I was a little girl in Tennessee. One occurred at some fancy house with acres upon acres of property. I’ve no clue who it belonged to, but I remember a tour of the house, a hay ride, and searching for money in a haystack. The other one I remember was at Horton Park, a place I was familiar with on account of family picnics. So I probably have memories of those mixed up, but the park brings back memories of a playground, more searching for money in a haystack, finding snails in the creek (and keeping a careful eye out for snakes, something quite dangerous in Tennessee), and learning the finer points of Bingo, a game not totally foreign to me as I played multiplication Bingo at school. The whole money thing, though, made no sense to me. Play a game for money? It seemed completely wrong then and still does today.

Very likely, in another thirty years, the company picnic we attended today will also seem very hazy. For, thankfully, nothing terribly memorable happened. And for a company picnic the size of one Subaru puts on, that is a good thing. Thousands of people were there, but the empty property that factory has (well, there is a football field, baseball fields, playground, rec center, tennis courts and daycare in the midst of many more acres) made it seem like there wasn’t that many. The only terribly crowded area was the food tents, but we found seats easy enough and weren’t there long enough to add to the crowd. After all, who wants to eat when there are bounce houses, carnival games, face painting, and all you can eat popcorn, cotton candy, saved iced and ice cream? 

It really was a good set up. The section we frequented had five different bounce houses the kids could play in – and the kids simply bounced back and forth between them. I kept an eye on Emry, and Ed chased Ethan around. It was brilliant. With so many, they didn’t get bored.  They dashed about, bounced to their hearts content, and completely exhausted themselves. In between, we got shaved ice (my personal favorite), enjoyed some popcorn and ice cream, got faces painted, and played one carnival game to win prizes. To top it all off, we parked in the parking lot on the other side of the factory and rode the bus back and forth, complete with a rendition of The Wheels on the Bus. 

We all went home exhausted. The kids went right to bed and while I had a few things to do, I actually curled up and watched an episode of Downton Abbeywithout working on either personal projects or work projects. A rare thing. And a nice thing.