A Penchant for Picnic Tables | by Kim Allsup

“Look, it’s a picnic table!” These words could have been (and probably were) exclaimed by Geoff while pedaling with Ben through the Canadian Rockies, while driving with Nora and me through the endless Maine forests, while exploring a new-to-us bike path or pond on Cape Cod, or while pulling into a waterfront parking area on Prince Edward Island where the sentence would wrap up with “and it’s in a picnic shelter!” 

We traveled with a table cloth, ready for a picnic. Cheese, crackers, apples, sugar snap peas from the garden joined whatever leftovers we rescued from the vacation mold monsters ready to pounce as soon as we headed (too slowly according to Geoff) out the door toward our adventures. So, whether traveling by foot, bikes, trikes, kayaks or car, picnic tables were part of our routine. Yet, Geoff enthusiastically called our attention to each and every picnic table he spotted, not only those we considered for our next meal.  

I figured Geoff’s penchant for public picnic tables arose in his childhood as his adventurous camping family journeyed first in a VW beetle, then, as the family grew, in a pale green VW van.  A series of campsites might have been unsettling to little Geoff, who appreciated routine, so the standard picnic table at each campsite probably brought a sense of security. A picnic table also meant you didn’t have to “eat in your lap,” a practice Geoff disliked, and made it possible to eat in a civilized way even in the wilderness. 

I developed a habit of surreptitiously (and obsessively) taking  pictures of Geoff at picnic tables. I would hide the camera  until he wasn’t looking at me and take the shot.  This became easier with the advent of the phone camera. For years he expressed lighthearted annoyance at as I captured his scowl or his smirk.

But, eventually, he made peace with my odd little photo hobby and

smiled into the camera as he did here in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2013. 

Someday, I said, I’d create an album of these photos.

Not to be forgotten is the unattainable roofed picnic table next to a bridge and overlooking a pond along the Confederation Trail on PEI. The problem was that we weren’t pedaling on the trail. We were paddling our kayaks on Larkin’s Pond, Geoff’s favorite secluded waterway. The bridge was perhaps 15 feet (oops in Canada it’s 5 meters) above a narrowing in the pond. The first time we noticed the picnic table we thought we might reach it by scaling the sharp-edged boulders —the size of picnic tables — that covered the steep banks. But, alas, we could not step out of the kayaks as the boulders terminated in deepish water. The second and third time we visited the ponds we were determined to find a section of shoreline where we could disembark then bushwhack to the increasingly attractive table. But the shorelines were lined with wide bands of water plants without landing sites. Some day, we said, we would bring a fantastic picnic and approach the table by cycling the trail. 

After decades in this affectionate relationship with picnic tables, Geoff started analyzing the essence of his abiding interest in these common public installations. He explained to me that picnic tables along roads, hiking paths, ponds, bike paths or beaches are a sign of a civilized society. They are a public acknowledgment that, along the highway of life, it’s not enough to provide utilitarian infrastructure such as public restrooms, trash cans and bus service. Life isn’t all about reaching destinations and getting things done. A civilized society recognizes the human need to stop, to quietly take in the view, to converse with family and friends and to break bread, preferably out of the rain. (Canada’s picnic shelters and roofed tables score high on the civility scale.)

When he noticed a picnic table, Geoff saw more than a small wooden structure, more than a place for lunch. He saw picnic tables as common, small expressions of civility akin to much larger public recognitions of the human spirit such as libraries and national parks.  

The appreciation of these uplifting public installations continues in our family. A grandchild recently told me about this common car conversation: 

—  “Look, a picnic table.”

— “Poppy would like that one.”