73 days before - The Neighbors

So, I live in a fairly podunk area of Ohio. (That may be redundant.) This afternoon, our next door neighbors invited us all to a neighborhood outdoor-type gathering. Now we live on a cul-de-sac with about eight houses, only one of which has someone living in it who also lived there when we moved here eleven years ago. That may not seem unusual, but you have to understand that we don't usually stay in one place for eleven years. When we first moved here, we were one of the youngest families on the street. I was in middle school at the time. Most of our neighbors were retired grandparents, and the only other family with kids was . . . well, not the "let's invite those guys to our house to play" type.

Our street has almost completely changed now, as there are several families with small children. We are no longer one of the youngest families. So for the past year, we've heard something on our street that we'd not heard in this neighborhood before: activity. Children playing outdoors and having a good time, people having cookouts, socializing . . . much like the gathering we were invited to this afternoon.

One of the other activities seen frequently on our street is a little game called Cornhole. If you've never heard of the game, then you obviously don't live in Ohio. Basically, the purpose is to throw bags full of dried corn over to a slanted board with a hole in it, and either land the bag on the board, or get it into the hole. Like horseshoes, but safer. And easier.

So part of this evening's gathering was a cornhole tournament. My two siblings and I all took part. My brother and sister were teamed together . . . and as they are both, you know, theatre people, they lost spectacularly. I was teamed with a nice young man named Joel whom I'd never met, and we managed to get second place in the tournament. How, I don't know, as I'd only played the game once before, and I'm, you know, a music person.

So, that's how I spent my evening. Our neighbors are very nice, and it's nice to have kind of a social environment in our neighborhood. On the other hand, it's kind of obvious that despite having lived here for eleven years, we're still essentially newcomers to the area, and therefore kind of stand out.

I mean, we absolutely SUCK at cornhole.

-Matt