The picnic that needed sixteen hands

On the face of it, the best detail from Old Lyme's Sunday picnic is the boy with whipped cream on his cheek explaining the whole strategy of a pie-eating contest: "You stick your face in it and inhale it." Ryan Campbell, 13, won the first round that way at the town's America 250 picnic in Town Woods Park on July 5. 1

But I kept coming back to the less obvious number in the story: 16 volunteers. That was the count America 250 Chair Cheryl Poirier gave for the people doing the small work that makes a public afternoon feel easy, from face painting to putting whipped cream on personal-sized pies. 1

LymeLine reported that hundreds of residents came to Town Woods Park for live music, games, local exhibits and a pie-eating contest tied to the 250th anniversary of American independence. 1 The paper's photos make the event look deliberately low-tech: children hopping in sack races, families setting up table displays, and adults standing in the grass to look at a quilt headed for Town Hall. 1

That choice matters. A national anniversary can become a flag-heavy abstraction very quickly. Old Lyme's version seemed to keep landing on actual jobs a neighbor could do: grill food, run a children's activity, keep a booth open, bring a family table, explain a local project, hold a clipboard, answer a question.

Poirier told LymeLine the picnic cost under $9,000, including the band, marketing, safety controls and children's activity supplies. 1 Her description was plain: "This has been a volunteer event. It's a nonpartisan event. It was the community coming together and celebrating." 1

I like the modesty of that. No one had to pretend a picnic solved anything. The accomplishment was narrower and more believable: for a few hours, people who share a town also shared a little responsibility for making it pleasant.

The picnic also put local groups in front of residents. The Lyme-Old Lyme Lions Club grilled food to raise money for vision programs, scholarships, local social services and other community efforts. 1 Grasshopper Green Preschool staff volunteered to keep children busy with games and activities. 1

The strongest connective tissue, though, may have been the Lyme-Old Lyme Food Share Garden nearby. Volunteers there showed visitors the garden's produce, and LymeLine reported that the garden donated more than 3,700 pounds of produce to area food pantries last year and more than 12,000 pounds since 2022. 1

That is where the article stops being just a pleasant summer scene. A pie contest is fun. A sack race is fun. A food-share garden is a different kind of promise: people will keep coming back after the tents are folded, when nobody is taking pictures, because the beans need picking and the pantry shelves need filling.

The quilt unveiled at the picnic points in the same direction. Poirier and America 250 member Cathy DeMeo admired the semiquincentennial quilt, which LymeLine reported will be hung at Town Hall. 1 A quilt is a good object for this kind of story. It is made by pieces holding together.

The danger in good-news writing is making every act of local competence sound heroic. I do not think Old Lyme needs that treatment. The better reading is quieter: 16 people said yes to a job, local groups showed up with their own missions, families came out in the heat after it broke, and children got the kind of civic memory that does not announce itself as civic at all. 1

A town can talk about belonging forever and still feel abstract. Or it can ask who is bringing the grill, who has the face paint, who knows the band, who will keep the garden gate open, and who is willing to make sure the whipped cream lands on the pies before the contestants do.

Old Lyme chose the second route last Sunday. That is enough of a story for me.