About this episode

The episode reflects on a community celebration in a small New England village, highlighting the connections between neighbors and the joys of family gatherings.

Here in the hills of inland New England, you could wander down the road this weekend into the village below. You will be going down to watch the fireworks with your family on the bridge that spans the lake as your friends and neighbors light them from a dock. It will be a little dusky as you walk down along the tree-lined road through the tunnel of green and everyone will be too excited, too full of anticipation of the night to come, to even mind the biting bugs that hatched in the humidity of the past week. That humidity brought hot days and brilliant nights of thunder and lightning that your children did not even mind for they were too exhausted from the long days of playing and swimming and doing all the good green things that children do. On your way, the widow who lives nearby may ask you to help her lift something. You oblige without thinking. The woman who lives behind the church with her ducks will wave even though she doesn’t quite remember who you are. This is fine; you can remind her again as you have a dozen times before. You will exchange some pleasant words with the new people who moved into the nice house down by the inn where your friends lived until recently…

People in this episode

Host: Ryan B. Anderson

Topics covered

• community
• family
• nature
• celebration
• local culture

Keywords

• fireworks
• New England
• community
• nature
• family

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