Calendar says September
Thermometer says summer
Our hearts say Thanksgiving
The calendar says September, but the thermometer is screaming summer. Still, the nights are trending longer and cooler, and the first hint of fall will soon be upon us. We will be particularly happy this year to say “good bye” to fire season. It started early and didn’t want to stop, but it did highlight the level of cooperation that exists when governmental entities and local citizenry pull together.
We tend to think that rural America has a monopoly on neighbors helping neighbors. But Houston has proved otherwise. Here is the country’s fourth largest city, and when the local, state and federal levels of government were overwhelmed by the need, they put out the call for help. The citizens responded. Of course, in most cases they didn’t have to be asked; people just started pitching in to assist those who needed it. Houston and the communities throughout the region will survive this storm, but they will be dealing with its aftermath for years to come. We can’t fully imagine the magnitude of disruption that thousands and thousands of people are facing.
It makes us thankful that while 2017 is going to go down in Plumas County history for being a year of flood and fire, we have just a few lingering effects to overcome. Work continues on our roadways to repair the flood damage, but we can still travel them, and while our forests were ravaged, our homes, businesses and services were spared. Children went back to school last week; who knows when the children impacted by Hurricane Harvey will have a classroom to enter.
As we as a county celebrate our relative good fortune, another entity is celebrating its own milestone — the Quincy Community Supper. It officially began Sept. 11, 2002, but will be recognized next Wednesday, Sept. 13, as community members gather for their weekly meal. This time of year is especially festive as the supper welcomes back the college students who always bring a youthful, energetic vibe to the gatherings. The supper is more than a free meal; it’s an opportunity for people to congregate, to share in the spirit of camaraderie that is bigger than themselves as individuals or even as families.
It might be easy to take this kind of event for granted, but it takes a core team behind the scenes week in and week out to help that week’s volunteer organization serve the meal. The success of the Quincy Community Supper has inspired towns throughout the county to offer similar meals.
Thanksgiving is still a couple of months away, but in a way it is coming early this year. We have so much to be grateful for in our corner of the world, and the community supper is a part of that.
