On New Year’s Day at noon, the temperature in City Park was hovering around 20 degrees. I know what you’re thinking.
Picnic weather.
“We’ve had the picnic in blizzards, literally blizzards. One year, at least three couples came on cross-country skis. But the majority of the time, the weather is good.”
This is Jack Farrar speaking. He’s set up a card table near the City Park bandstand, put out a few chairs, a big insulated bottle filled with hot, black coffee and a couple blankets. His wife, Pam, will arrive shortly, bringing her black-eyed peas in a slow cooker.
Snow blankets the ground and the park is quiet save the few folks out on a New Year’s Day constitutional and the argument the couple hundred geese parked on the frozen lake seem to be having — are we leaving now? No. Are we leaving now? What’d I just say?
The first Farrar family picnic was held in 1986 here at the park bandstand. So was the second, third, fourth, fifth and so on and so forth, until here we are now, 25 years gone by and not a New Year’s Day picnic missed. In that time, parents have passed on, grandchildren have been born, friends have come and gone, though most have remained and they show up, too, bringing beer and deviled eggs and resolutions high-minded and low-brow.
1986 – (I resolve) not to read on the toilet. Tom K.
1990 – (I resolve) to read better books on the toilet. Tom K.
As Jack recollects, well, he can’t quite remember how this all started, but along the way, he has come to view the New Year’s Day gathering as reaffirmation of the hardiness of Coloradans.
Cold? Have another buffalo wing.
Pam does remember. “We had young kids and we lived in a neighborhood of young kids and no one did anything on New Year’s Day. So, we thought, ‘Let’s have a picnic.’ “
“We were surprised by how many showed up,” Jack says. “We thought, ‘Heck, let’s do it every year.’ “
Every year, out come the table and the chairs and the black-eyed peas and the butcher paper upon which resolutions are to be written. And this is how a fun idea one year becomes a fun tradition 25 years later. As with all traditions, whether born of solemnity or frivolity, this one offers a touchstone, a reconnection not just to a person or place or time, but to a sense of being, of belonging.
“It’s the Brunes!” Pam calls out and here are Becky and Mike. Hugs all around.
Here, too, are Dale Zeman, Bettina Basanow, Chuck Bates, David Wilson, Dorian Siegel and his girlfriend, Darlene.
“Look at this picture of you,” Jack tells Dale, showing him a poster board covered with pictures of New Year’s picnics past. “Good God,” Dale exclaims. “I was skinny.”
Every year, Jack invites passers-by for a cup of coffee and a bowl of beans, and this year, Abdul Rakeen interrupts his daily walk to take him up on it.
“What is your resolution, Mr. Rakeen?” I ask. Rakeen, who came to this country as a refugee from Afghanistan and is now a citizen, says: “What I want, my hope, yes? I want the war in Afghanistan stopped. I wanted the Iraq war stopped. I want for all people, peace. That is my idea.”
This resolution, repeated to the group, gets a hear, hear. Pam and Jack have managed to save all the resolutions made over time. This year, they compiled them and the list makes the rounds. I resolve to: “be nice to my sister,” “get a contract with DPS,” “publish a piece of writing,” “avoid the burden of resolutions,” “turn Jack F. into a Republican,” “grow and be strong.”
“Here’s yours, Mike,” Becky says. “1997. Finish the basement. Be more patient. Plan and follow through.” She laughs. “Plan and follow through?”
“But the basement is done,” he says.
“That’s because you hired someone.”
Turnout is light this year. The apparently not-so-hardy Coloradans will wait until the picnic moves from the park to the Farrars’ Park Hill home before joining in. But for a short while, at least, the friends visit and eat in a hushed and beautiful park, and in this way passes another Farrar New Year’s Day picnic where the warmth never has anything to do with the temperature.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
