Middle Daughter heads to Senegal next week to study for a year, and a send-off party was in order. She posted the announcement on Facebook and had 5 replies in 2 minutes. At least 37 friends from high school, from college, from work at college, from frisbee league, from church and old friends and family RSVP'd—and showed up.
On only 3 weeks' notice, and constrained to find a picnic shelter downtown, the only place available was Brittingham Park. Its a beautiful spot by Lake Monona, with spacious grounds, a nice shelter, and bike path by the lake. Why hadn't somebody else snaffled it earlier?
Because that's where the bums and the drug dealers hang out.
The better half made Jolof rice (veggie or lamb) and curry, made tomatillo dip, bought veggie trays and chips and soda and the other trimmings. (One of Middle Daughter's friends brought beer and hard lemonade later.) All was carefully packed in the van, together with brooms and cleanser and paper towels.
When we arrived there were about 20 black men hanging around the shelter, and several other men sleeping on benches. One offered to take charge of getting the place set up for us, and did. We offered him food, and he and his assistants ate and left—sort of. He came back later requiring “change,” and I was able to truthfully claim to have almost none on me. Over the course of the afternoon he became more and more bombed (not on stuff from our party, though) and a nuisance. He wound up with 3 plates of food, the last two piled up in a revolting mess. I don't think he learned that in the Marine/Army sniper group he claimed to have served in.
After about 40 minutes or so the first guests started to arrive. They weren't hungry. MD was having a good time talking with them, though. More started trickling in, and then a few more. I'd no notion who most of them were, of course—do fathers ever know them all?
Then Eldest Son brought the two youngest kids for an hour, and the food consumption started in earnest. A bleary gentleman with a bike importuned some food (though he disparaged all forms of processed sugar (at length)), and tried to chat up one young lady with the conversational line that she should hang out with boys her own age and not old guys like him. He required a substantial amount of my time. He called me Boss-Man, and explained the virtues of having a street name—because then you could honestly tell the cops you didn't know the real name. After I'd run interference a few times he asked me if I was prejudiced. Some of my wife's family were just arriving, so I told him No, I grew up in Africa, and learned a lot of things there. One of them was to take care of your family, and I was going to do that. Now. He got the message, and slowly took his fried brain elsewhere.
I wished I'd taken notes on how my father dealt with the importunate and marginally present. He was the original “Boss-Man” back in Liberia.
Several people called MD for directions. The party was in the section of the shelter facing the lake, and from the road all people could see was the drug dealers (who didn't bother us, fortunately).
My better half's father and cousins came to celebrate the adventurer, and three old friends from church. In and out went various homeless guys asking for food, which they got, together with a quick lesson on African food in America. More of MD's friends came and went, and seemed to be having a good time talking together and meeting people they'd only heard about.
A squat fellow with squint and glassy eyes tried to buttonhole guests. My wife enlisted her father's help, who proceeded to collar him and talk to him about the plan of salvation. Not quite what he expected, I suppose.
A duck that must have been a cross between three different strains of wild and domestic wandered about, and a couple of immature ones waddled through and between looking for spilt bread and chips: a very helpful and amusing cleanup crew. One of MD's highschool friends is afraid of ducks, unfortunately.
A classmate of Middle Daughter's from Yoruba came by just as we were about to end the festivities. He'd been an economic consultant. One day he asked himself why he was doing this dull job when he had no family to support, and joined the Peace Corps, then went back to school. He's older than I, and hoping for a PhD.
One of our old friends walked around the shelter, to be met with the greeting “Hello officer.” Which rather surprised her, since she hasn't worked as a police officer for many years, and she's not very tall. Must be something about her bearing, since the dealers agreed they'd not seen her before nor she them.
We rolled up the sidewalk at 6, but weren't able to clean up properly because a Korean student group (not scheduled) showed up and started putting their stuff all over the benches. The remaining veggies and pop my wife arranged that the homeless men take. We weren't quite out of food, but almost. We'd have had to take home a lot more, and much would have gone to waste, if not for the homeless men hanging around the place.
We left. MD hung around talking with friends until the mosquitoes came out.
The party seemed successful, on the whole.
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