More Beer Possibly, More Children Definitely
Reflecting on Breweries, Summersaults, and our Longing for Friendship
If someone took down all of the Oskar Blues Brewery signs on the winding backroads of western North Carolina, there is absolutely no way you could find the brewery.
Too many tight curves holding your attention lest your car veer off the narrow roadway.
Too many foliage-covered hiking trails luring your attention toward adventure.
(one such trail)
And then the entrance to the brewery itself unfolds by way of a long, thin, unheralded road that surely, you think, must be a dead end.
Thank goodness for those persistent signs.
“Oskar Blues Brewery, 4 Miles.”
“Oskar Blues Brewery, 2 Miles. Turn Right”
“Oskar Blues Brewery, 1/2 Mile. Turn Left.”
Because if you can brave the narrow roads, resist the tempting trails, and the push through the thought that you’re on a road leading to nowhere…
…you arrive to an expansive parking lot adjacent to an enormous, blue brewery. After you park, you naturally walk toward the brewery’s spacious picnic area where old and young alike are gathered with beers, burgers, and smiles.
My family visited this hidden haven of community last week. And it was not more than a minute after we found our table that a 5-year-old girl came up to our 6-year-old and said very straightforwardly,
“Do you want to do somersaults with me?”
And like that, two young children who had never met were rotating their bodies over and around with gleeful smiles. Very quickly, our 2-year-old took note, bravely descended from his seat, and stuck his head straight into the grassy dirt.
Feet anchored to the ground, head anchored to the ground - it was basically a downward dog with the arms dangling, uncertain. Finally, his arms figured out that they could be the thing to help his body propel into a summersault like the big kids.
He gave it a go, and immediately his body fell sideways - a classic toddler tumble into the grass.
Laughter filled the air from a couple tables over.
It was the parent’s of the young girl who had invited summersaults. I looked their way with my own big, laughing grin. No words were exchanged but our shared sentiment conveyed plenty.
Connection. Understanding. Joy. Basically, You get it. I get it. We get it.
Last week I wrote an Ode to The Mall of Yesterday, and I asked you, the reader, “Where do we wander these days?”
If many malls (and their space for social togetherness) are a thing of the past, where are the places simply…
To be, together.
To share in friendship.
To open ourselves to surprising, new connections - and perhaps even genuine community.
Maybe breweries?
My sense is that most of the folks at Oskar Blues were not there for the beer. Not primarily. They were there for the community. Not only the gift of being with the people they arrived with, but also the gift of being in a fluid space where connections with other people might happen. Many craft breweries have become a gift that way.
At the same time, I am hardly convinced that breweries have the corner on new community-building. Because really any space that has children around has a really good opportunity to engender the kind of connection we all long for.
It was a five year old, after all, who did not have fears about what others might think or how meeting new people is ‘supposed’ to happen. In a straightforward, kind manner she essentially asked my son,
“Want to move around with me?”
“Want to share the same space as me?”
“Want to smile together?”
Adults lose the ability to do this so quickly, so freely. But children make the move, and the adults look up, laugh, and realize the silliness of their distance and the sudden bridge their children have already built.
What about you? Ever noticed how children - yours, theirs, anybody’s - have a way of bringing people together?
Ever had meaningful adult friendships grow from the fact that your child and another child wanted to do somersaults (or the like) together?
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I’m convinced that for many adults in our day and age, finding friendships of genuine depth and longevity feels like searching for hidden treasure. It’s this long lost thing we hope maybe exists somewhere around the challenging curves of life and beyond the many trails of our career-and-travel adventures.
And even when we do risk the path of new friendship, how often small talk about things that don’t really matter quickly tires, and we think, “Another dead end.”
But thank goodness for children like signs pointing the way. Everyday.
Thank goodness for children like bridges making the way. Everyday.
Maybe it’s why Jesus said that if you really want the pearl of great price, you must become like a child.
As newlyweds, Mike and I were having a picnic in a park in Houston and had just cut the chocolate cake when this adorable 4 year old walked by and eyed the cake. She introduced her dog "Peaches" to us in her very southern accent. We asked her if she would like a piece of cake; if so, go ask your parents. She ran to her parents, we waved, and then she came screaming back, "I can, I can", and we proceeded to have a lovely conversation and share a picnic staple.
Malls as gathering places were a city thing! Being a Country Boy gathering places were church, rodeos, ropings, picnics, and dances. Usually complete families would participate.