Impromptu Gatherings have Evolved into a Neighborhood Tradition
By Jennifer Proe
Harriett Allen and friend at the Gridley picnic.
On Fridays, when the weather is nice, Harriett Allen sends out the bat signal to the neighborhood using the Lomond Association Facebook page: “Looks like nice weather tonight! Who wants to meet up at Gridley for dinner?”
Over the past two years, this impromptu neighborhood gathering at Gridley Triangle in the Lomond neighborhood has become a tradition. Anyone from the neighborhood, or from anywhere really, is welcome. Sometimes a dozen or more neighbors gather in the park, which is dotted with picnic tables and benches, street lamps, a Little Free Library, and appropriately enough, a bat house that Harriett purchased and the City installed. When it first started, says Harriett, “a couple of times it was just me and the squirrels.”
How did this all get started? “It’s a funny story,” Harriett says. “I live on the first hill of the Appalachian Mountains at the corner of Sherrington and Glencairn. I’ve been in this house 56 years. Well, I sit in my window seat and I see people coming home from the Rapid. I’m projecting: ‘Oh, they’re all alone. They’re probably going home to have dinner by themselves after a long week. Th at’s so sad. Wouldn’t it be nice for everyone if we could have dinner together?
“In reality,” she tells me, “I know they’re probably thrilled to go home after a long week and maybe they just want to have dinner on their own.” But the turnout indicates she was on to something.
“Looks like nice weather tonight! Who wants to meet up at Gridley for dinner?”
Neighbors Lynn Lilly and Frank Goforth are staunch regulars. So are Madelaine Matej MacQueen and her husband James, along with their baby, Eleanor, who was born two weeks before the pandemic shut down the world.
“We were so happy we could bring her to the Gridley dinners for some social interaction,” Madelaine says. They’ve since moved to University Heights but come back whenever they can for Fridays al fresco. Christopher and Rachel Ruthenbeck, purveyors of Hippie Chick Noms homemade granola, also join in the fun from time to time. Wynn Shafer comes every week with her dog, Pucci, who enjoys the socializing as well as the occasional handout.
“She doesn’t know the days of the week, so she will often take me over to the park on her evening walk expecting to fi nd her friends,” says her owner. “I’ve explained to her that we only meet on Fridays, but she’s ever hopeful.”
It’s a pretty casual affair; it’s not even really a potluck. For the most part, people just bring their own dinners or a snack and a beverage. “But I’m a Jewish mother, so I want to feed everyone,” says Harriett, who has been known to bring cookies to share. Harriett’s grown children, Steve Weitzner and Wendy Weitzner Wasman, live in Shaker and raised their kids here, so she doesn’t lack for family. But something about these get-togethers creates another kind of connection she values just as deeply.
“It’s so fun because it’s a community,” says Harriett. “We share our stories about our trips, like when Lynn and Frank went to China. Mostly people share funny things that happened to them that week. And when a neighbor died earlier this year, we were able to get together and soothe one another.”
Says Lynn, “Friday nights at Gridley are the first thing we put on our calendar every summer. In fact, at our house, we call it Dinner with Harriett. We eat, we laugh, we connect – we were strangers who have become friends.”
So, if it’s Friday night and the weather is pleasant, get over to Gridley to make some new friends. And pack a few treats for Pucci, please.
