Letter from Chip Northrup
Like Living in a Rockwell Painting
At the end of the summer season, as the town settles into fall, the community dinner is the one annual opportunity for everyone of all walks of life, all religions or no religion, all political parties or no political parties, to share food and camaraderie with each other—at least for one day—as if living in a Norman Rockwell painting.
It serves as a barometer of who has community spirit and who doesn’t. Who gives and who takes. Who enlivens and who deadens. The metaphor of the supper is clear: Are you truly alive to the community?
In Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” when one of the characters, Emily Webb, returns to the town from the dead for one day, she wonders aloud to the stage manager if any of the living realize how precious life is. “No,” he tells her. “The saints and poets, maybe.” He could have added, “And the ones that bring the best blueberry pie.”
Chip Northrup
Cooperstown
