Awkward!

Years ago, during the time that both my husband and I were working full time, we kept our community oriented  activities linked with our children's activities.  Whenever we participated in a bake sale or white elephant money raising activity it was usually tied to the soccer team or brownie scouts or some school event or for early years the church.  We operated within a small circle of parents and therefore knew almost everyone at the event.

Now we are no longer working full time and are able to devote more time to slowly becoming involved in this new (to us) small community through various volunteer activities and events.  We are slowly beginning to feel that we are no longer the newcomers.

Yesterday we spent seven hours on our feet promoting a children's community garden by getting children to plant a lettuce or broccoli plant in our demo garden as they attended a Green Earth Day exposition.  If this garden is not destroyed by a freak storm, eaten to the ground by Bambi, or some other unpredictable event, we hope to be able to harvest food throughout the season for a nearby food pantry.  Summer camp students will also be linked to the garden during their week at the art garden and learn and help.  As you can see above, the spring break school children have already decorated the stunning white oak that we obtained to make the boxes.

Many of the children were eager to plant their vegetable which we allowed them to mark with a 'name tag.'   They were encouraged to come by and visit their plant throughout the month.  Some of these families are military families and not able to garden as they would like, so we are hoping we gave them some ideas and allowed their children some fun.

Over 90 children helped us plant these vegetable beds.  At the end of the day, after we had planted the few plants that were left, loaded the remaining flats of lettuce into the car and checked to make sure all our hand tools were loaded, a well dressed handsome 60-year-old with a mustache stopped by the beds.   He greeted us by our name and praised our garden work.  Hubby greeted him back and the talk flowed back and forth for some time on gardening and the seasons and eventually descriptions of the pros and cons in each of our yards.

When he left I turned to Hubby and asked:  "Who was that?"

Hubby responded,  "I don't know!"

"Well, he knows us!"  I said, "I thought he might be that guy at the scientists club that had asked you to speak."

Hubby replied, "Yeah, so did I, but when he said he lived down by the point, I knew it wasn't that fellow because that guy lives near the cliffs."

I must admit that I am much more used to people NOT knowing who I am.  I hope that this is not going to happen habitually, yet something very similar happened at a talk we went to just a few nights ago.  The couple who sat behind us and recognized us had to introduce themselves in context (two months ago an evening dinner at a mutual friend's house) and then the light bulb went on over my head.  I hate being that type of person...old and doddery!  I have become the cliche which I cringed at seeing in others.