THE COMPANY PICNIC

I don't know if you have any childhood memories of employee picnics in your family, but i do!!
They are picnics with the whole family( or whoever is home that day), kids paying games, adults in random conversations, and food for all!!

We attended Dave's company picnic a few Saturdays ago and it brought back alot of memories.
Dave's company used to do a "Hawaiian Shirt Chili-Cook off Tailgate" picnic at a Brewers Game in Milwaukee every summer in the 70's as an alternative to the usual Company summer picnic. It was great fun! Everybody (who wanted to participate) brought their version of Chili and the company supplied the Brewers tickets, chili fixins & french bread, and prizes and everyone brought their own drinks in usual tailgate style. There were prizes for the best and worst chili as well as the best Haywain shirt outfit- fun fun. Top chili prize was $, best Hawaiian shirt was a company sweatshirt and worst chili was a can of Hormel chili( he he).I was 8 mo pregnant with at one of the last tailgates i attended in a giant pg Hawaiian sundress! I learned some fun new ingredients for chili making- wow was there variety from white bean chili to chili with noodles, some with steak, some very spicy and some not. I now add BBQ sauce and bacon to my regular chili recipe from this tailgate influence( oops... i just gave away my secret ingredients!!).

As the years went on it was harder and harder to figure out who could actually attend( correct # of tickets to buy) as so many conflicts in summer with summer family vacations, weddings etc...,so after a few years of tickets not being used they decided to switch back to a less expensive summer picnic at a forest preserve park.

At this picnic the company supplies the paper goods, meat and buns and soda and then everyone brought homemade side sides/salads and desserts to share. They always have kids activities- some years they had games with prizes. As there are so many young children now ( toddlers, preschoolers) this year they had a neat blow up jumping house (which the kids of all ages loved), a hay pile with coins and candy to find,and water balloons to play with and of course the cute mini company logo shirts for each child attending. This year they even threw in a cute nylon company logo carry bag too.The traditional continuing games for the adults are in teams: Bag-O , tug of war, and my favorite the "raw egg toss".The egg toss is where you line up across from your partner and throw the egg, then take a step backward increasing the distance for each throw until you miss. The only prize for adult games is a traveling Bag-o trophy. Such fun!! The food is amazing and usually the president of the company does the grilling of all the meat! It really is a nice family event and as we grow older in the process we now meet many grandchildren of our company friends, as our children are all grown up.It is hard to save that few hours and stay home on a a summer weekend but it is nice to see everybody in such a fun relaxed family format.

When I was young, the company my Dad worked for had a great annual summer company picnic at a park in Milwaukee. What I remember is the kids games- sack race, three legged race( tie inside legs together and hop to finish line),wheelbarrow race( hold legs of partner and they walk on their hands), egg- spoon carry,and candy pinata and all the kids got extra ice cream tickets for prizes.The ice cream was those fun cups you eat with a wooden tongue depressor type spoon- my favorite of the picnic treats. And i remember getting a helium balloon too when we left for home. After the games we ate lunch( provided by the company- hot dogs and hamburgers and usual trimmings and dad talked with his friends and introduced us kids to his truck driving co-workers.Dad worked for REA Express, a company that delivered packages too large for the postal system or UPS that came in on the trains. Ironically years later ( in the 60's)the UPS system got greedy and took larger and larger packages and ultimately put REA out of business so my dad was forced into early retirement at age 62 with little notice. My dad used to bring home great "seconds"( slightly damaged goods that employees could buy). He bought us some fun giant 3 wheel bikes, a cute glass top dressing table for me one Christmas and other stuff. When REA went out of business my dad bought the Milwaukee RRoad station master's desk from the railroad station in downtown Milwaukee.and some neat large wooden trunks which my brother still has.

My mom's company Lakeside Bridge and Steel in Milwaukee did not have a summer company picnic for families, instead they had a family kids Christmas party that employees could bring their children or grandchildren to and all would receive really nice gifts- like dolls or board games. I do not remember going to this as a child, but i remember my mom and I taking my girls( the grandchildren) to it a number of years. It was fun and of course there was an appearance by the company Santa Claus to give out all the gifts by Name( as employees registered the children coming by name and age before hand so the company knew how many gifts to buy and what ages to buy for - very thoughtful i thought! All the grandparents got to show off the cute grand kids in their Christmas pretty dresses and outfits.Mom really enjoyed this.

Today as the economy takes a dive, companies may indeed come back to this once a year inexpensive type of get together for families of employees vs the more expensive employee only Christmas parties. I know my husband's company cancelled their Christmas party last Dec for the first time in 37 yrs in lieu of all the layoffs occurring- they simply could not afford or justify the expense. In this economy downfall we will all have to learn to do things simpler and with less expense.Perhaps it is not a bad life lesson after all, as Americans have been living beyond their means for many years and this is just a wake up call to reality.Lets hope the Company Picnic makes a comeback..... it is such a fun family event!!