Fun for the Whole Family at Mr. Shaver's Yearly Barbecue Picnic

Mr. Shaver's annual barbecue is a family affair. Everyone turns out from seniors to infants.


Entertainment included a bluegrass band and also this year a Mexican-American band. Our community is getting more multicultural.


Mr. Shaver's fly boy buddies always come up with something cool. This year they had guests parachute down to the party.


There were lots of neat activities at the barbecue party for the kids and even wax hands - fun for all ages.


Mr. Shaver sure knows how to throw a party. In addition to all the great barbecue, he also had live music and activities for the kids and adults too.

Since Mr. Shaver lives on a farm, he had tractors pulling hay wagons. Those were running all day and toured around his entire farm. We arrived later in the day, since I had to work, and it was raining a little. We didn't take a hay ride, but those are fun. We've done that in years past.

After we chatted with some friends and neighbors, we got some barbecue and settled down to enjoy some bluegrass. That's always a hit in this area as well as gospel music. The local diner has a gospel music night and packs the place every week. My mom enjoys that. I lean more to flat out bluegrass myself.

This is the first year I remember a mariachi band at the party. They did a great job. This is a farming area. We've always had some migrant farmers in during the growing season. Many families are now staying and calling this area home. My next door neighbors are Mexican American. They throw some pretty lively parties I must say including some strob lights. They may think our barbecues are dull over here. Perhaps I need some cool lights too.

Although Mr. Shaver does not have any little kids, he does remember them at his yearly barbecue. He rents those big blow up slides and jumping toys. He had rock climbing this year. Some kid got up there and started yelling, "Momma." That always gets my attention even now that mine are teens. The rock climbing man crawled up ther and got the kid, because I don't think his momma was too keen on scaling the wall to get the kid down. All is well that ends well.

Another new activity this year was wax hands. You put your hand in ice water, dip your hand in wax, back in the water and so on. You come out with a hollow wax hand formed from your hand.

I had to get a wax hand. One of the men at the table said, "What good're them?" I said, "Well, I think they're just for fun." And, off I went to wax my hand to save for all eternity or until we manage to knock it off the piano I guess.

The wax hand man said I could make any shape, so I thought I would do the "hang loose" hand sign. I learned that when we went to Hawaii. Well, I guess I did not learn it too well. Mom asked me what I made. I said, "Hang loose." She said, "Well, that's acutally 'I love you.'" Oops. She took sign language. I decided I better not flash my way cool purple wax hand around after she told me it was "I love you." Oh well. Next time, I'll get "hang loose" right (-:

All during the party, some of Mr. Shaver's friends who fly small airplanes went over and even dropped folks out by parachute. That is not a sight you see often in a town of 800. They were good landers and hit the strip. I kept wondering if anyone would land on one of the tents or something. Their aim was good. Thumbs up to the fly boys and the ones who literally dropped in on the party. My 15-year-old sure would have loved to do that. Maybe someday he can take lessons and parachute. He is the daredeveil.

There were a lot of pretty young girls at the barbecue party and one special one. My son caught a ride home with a friend who was staying later. Hum. I think the kid is growing up. I must say he has very good taste. The young lady who caught his eye was definately cute and seemed very nice to boot.

All in all, it was a super barbecue. Mr. Shaver had everyone covered from the youngest to the oldest. He even gave out gifts. I got a tote bag, since I get really bad hat hair. My son loved the white Shaver Products ball cap. It was white. My mom thought maybe he should get beige. A nice lady told us the trick to washing ball caps - put them in the dishwasher. So, he got the white one. One problem though. We don't own a dishwasher. Teehee. Oh well. I'll figure something out.