Roast beef on a bun slathered in BBQ sauce; homemade baked beans and potato salad eaten under the pine trees in a community park as a local rock/country/oldie band plays live music–all for six dollars. It’s the annual June Picnic in Craigmont, Idaho (population, under 600). I go every year to remember what life could be like–simple, pleasant, no one in a hurry. People have time to stop and ask me what I’ve been up to and how are my children. They share with me about their daughter who’s getting married, the new grandbabies, the job, the remodeling project, and none of it sounds like one upmanship.

The sun is warm and I’m too full for the huckleberry pie I had my eye on earlier that was being served by the Winchester church ladies. I didn’t win anything in the church raffle, but my sister did. She’s taking home the handstitched dishtowels. My cousin won the afghan.

My nephew and his wife leave early–a disappointing loss in the volley ball tournament. My brother tells me there was a good turnout up at the amateur logging exposition. My nieces and nephews all want to go up town and buy a Lion Club’s hamburger (voted best in the Lewiston Tribune’s latest poll). This after eating candy they’ve collected from the floats in the parade earlier. One said it’s like Christmas, Halloween, and his birthday all rolled into one.

My husband stretches out on the grass and takes a nap. I hear about my nephew who’s going to Iraq in October and my brother-in-law who will be climbing a mountain in a few weeks. My uncle talks about his cancer treatments and my aunt about the death of her son, but it’s not sadness that I take away from these conversations. It’s hope.

God’s not mentioned and yet he’s there among us–made more real by the everydayness of our conversations.