The Rural Voice, 1979-06, Page 22Family
picnics
My name is Karen Beecroft. I am an
average everyday person. 1 have no real
hobby except that I love to play the ukulele.
I like to share my personal thoughts with
friends and I especially like it when they
come to me for advice. Then when I give it
to them I feel like I have done my good deed
for the day When I grow up I would like to
be a big city lawyer that everybody knows
about and comes to for advice. If I can't be
a lawyer I'll settle for a highschool
guidance counselor. Either way I will be
sharing my thoughts and making people
happy and that's really all I want to do.
FAMILY PICNICS
The choice is yours! Stay home and be
talked about or go and, have a really good
argu ment.
Have you guessed what I'm talking
about yet? Try think of something that
usually happens every summer. Something
that takes that hideous frown from your
face and brings an ear to ear smile to your
lips. A place where there is enough food to
keep an elephant living for a whole year. A
family picnic of course! Every year my
family has a picnic, we started this
tradition in nineteen fifty-four. Relatives
from all over come for this very important
event. To give you an idea of what some of
the family gatherings I attend are like I
would ask you to sit back relax and listen
very carefully. The day is bright and the
birds are singing. Things go very slowly
until about nine a.m. but then do the
orders ever fly. There are salads to be
made and meats to be prepared. By about
twelve noon we head for wherever the
picnic is being held. When we arrive there
are the usual hello's then the fun starts.
When all the cousins, nieces and nephews
arrive we usually go for a walk.
I remember one year we went to a bush.
We found this great big old tree to climb
and when we were all wrapped up in the
news to be heard something was brought to
our attention. It was a cry forhelp! The cry
became louder and louder and all of a
sudden we heard a great big snap! There
was my cousin lying on the ground. We
didn't go up in that tree anymore.
After the walk we go swimming and
when there is a group of children like us
who needs a supervised pool? We prefer a
small secluded lake. The lake that we
swam in last year was small and
surrounded by trees. It had once been an
old gravel pit. In the middle there was
black mud and seaweed. Well, my cousin
decided that he was going to get even with
this girl on the with some black mud. She
had been bugging him. There were
screams and hollers to be heard all over!
When she came back she was covered from
head to toe in black mud I must say though
she did deserve it.
For sometime now 1 have been talking
mostly about the children and what fun we
have. But the adults have their fun to. It is
possible for one family to carry on a
conversation for about an hour without
having a disagreement. But put our family
together and we could have an arguement
going in ten minutes. No need to worry
though because they all usually end up
laughing when they finally realize that they
were all wrong and so ends the argument.
By about five o'clock we all begin to get a
little bit hungry. There is always lots of
pushing and shoving around the big table
of food. It may sound boring but when the
children get a food fight started it can get
very exciting. Especially when we try to
By Brenda Finch, 8, R.R. 1, Clinton
keep the adults from seeing what we are
doing. I must say it is very funny to walk
into a room after everyone has cleared out
and see a piece of meat in the corner, some
potato salad, on the carpet and a bit of
icing sticking to the wall.
After the meal is over the older children
gather around and when the younger
childen aren't look ing we hop in the truck
and head for the lake. When at the lake we
take out the paddle boats. For those of you
who do not know what a paddle boat is,it is
a small boat with a rudder on the back. It
has peddles at your feet like the ones you
would find on a bicycle. It has two seats
and in between the two seats there is a
handle so that you may steer the boat.
"Sound boring?" Well it really isn't. We
have wars with the boats and that is fun. At
our picnic last year my cousin and I took
out a boat. We would let someone cat,'-. up
with us and just before they smashed into
us we would move the handle back and
forth as fast as we could water would
splash all over them! Nobody came near
our boat after that.
The sun is setting in the sky and the
good-byes are being said. I have that sad
feeling although I know that this year we
will have a family picnic even bigger and
better than this one.
Karen Beecrof
Brookside, Ont. Age 14
PG. 20 THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1979