Historical September 1985 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The Central West End Neighborhood Picnic was held on Sunday, August 11, 1985 in Forest Park.
It was mostly business as usual, ably engineered by Shirley Polk.
There were the usual scenes . .. grown men sitting around schmoozing, babies asleep on blankets under trees, ladies sitting at picnic tables gossiping (OK, OK, just chatting .. .), daintily upraised fingers clutching barbequed ribs or sizzling hot dogs, forks poised over potato salad, and lots of good, drippy, sweet watermelon (of which more later).
In the “Lucky Picnicer” drawings, O.T. Payne, Sr., 57xx McPherson, won the 10-speed bike (which was a gorgeous red model, incidentally). Sharon Edwards of the 57xx block of McPherson won the 30 lbs. of ribs, and Mark Rogers of the 57xx block of Waterman won the case of Bud Lite. Seems like the winning number was 57xx, doesn’t it? Unusual events for this “as ever” event: somebody taught the kids to fill balloons with water. Neglecting that this technique is better set in a high-rise hotel (watch out below!), the kids had a cooling lot of fun playing catch. Of course, a few moms said, “How on earth did you get so wet/dusty/muddy?”, but kids do dry out and dust off!
As to that watermelon: Fred the Blue Roan Horse was in attendance, as he has been for the past several years.
This little horse would be a lap dog if he didn’t have hooves, and his sweet nature is a tribute to his owner.
However, Fred does NOT like carrots.
On the other hand, we proved by empirical evidence that Fred (and possibly other horses) likes watermelon . . . and makes just about as much mess as any other youngster!
As noted, this was very much an “as usual” event, for in the words of the song: THIS WAS A DARN NICE PICNIC, AND WE ALL HAD A WONDERFUL TIME!
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September 1985.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1985_09.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
