The Brandywine Creek was a popular spot to be this past Saturday afternoon, with kayakers, canoeists and tubers enjoying the glorious weather. I was one of the latter. As part of his huge annual party, the host drives his guests a few miles upstream in a truck and drops them off.
The only problem is that there's a limited number of inner tubes, so you have to wait for the previous tubers to finish their trip. Tube-snagging became quite competitive: the "welcoming party" of people waiting for tubes moved steadily upstream throughout the afternoon to catch the returning tubers earlier in their trip.
I actually started to get a little cranky while waiting -- but then realized that there were far worse places to be than standing in the middle of the creek on a beautiful afternoon with amusing friends and some pretty funny kids. Nonetheless, next year we're bringing our own tubes.
While floating downstream, one fellow in our party, an arborist, commented on how majestic sycamores are. And sturdy, too, he said; you never see one uprooted. Of course, just around the next bend, there was a horizontal sycamore nearly touching the water.
Back at the picnic, the BBQ chef told me about the art of roasting a 189-lb pig (he bought it at a butcher shop on Ninth Street in Philadelphia). He started the cooking process early that morning. The fire was too hot at first, he said, and the dripping fat produced a fireworks-like jet of flame. He managed to tweak the temperature, and the end result, I assured him, could not have been better.
There was music throughout the day. As I drove in I heard someone doing "St. Tropez" from Pink Floyd's "Meddle"" album (not at all what you'd expect at a picnic). Other musicians took to the stage (made of wooden pallets) to do Dylan songs and Rolling Stones songs, and a DJ in another part of the property was spinning disco and Motown. QUITE a party.
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