Summer Days and Chicken Salad

It truly is amazing that we live in a town where a teenage girl can be dropped off in a public park with a few blankets and a two-pound tub of chicken salad and be perfectly safe. 

This was the case last night, at Academy Field, for me and seven of my friends, part of a last-ditch effort to revive our summer, seeing as we are well into August already. We were armed with rolls, the aforementioned chicken salad, grapes and assorted drinks, along with a few Frisbees, balls and a wiffle ball bat. And, let me just say, it worked out great. It’s nice to have friends that will play ultimate Frisbee and kickball with you, and not just sit sullenly in a corner texting, like we teenagers so often do. 

On our Academy-Field-picnic adventure, we met a ton of people. Apparently, around six o’clock, Academy Field is the place to see and be seen. We met people and their dogs, kids, parents and more dogs, sometimes without a person.  Nevertheless, it seemed like half of East Greenwich stopped in to say hello, and tell us that our picnic was a great idea. Our town is great like that.

So, my friends and I played freeze-tag, talked to people, played with their dogs and their kids, and ate our food. The whole time I was thinking, now this is what summer memories are supposed to be like, none of that forced fun you get sometimes at a party, or at the beach, but a real, honest-to-goodness good time. 

As the evening wound down, and the bugs came out, and the people went home, we gathered up all our blankets and put them down right in the middle of the field. There were nine of us at that point, all smashed into three blankets, side by side, making conversation and staring up at the stars. I don’t mean to get all cheesy on you here, but how incredibly lucky am I? Lucky in the sense that I live in a town that allows me to do this type of thing, and lucky that I have these incredible friends to do it with. Not to mention that Dave’s has awesome chicken salad.   

“There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart” - Celia Thaxte

Until next week,

Rach