Roast Beef Dinner at the Fire House
November 6th, 2013 · No Comments · Posted in rural life
We drove 13 miles to West Hebron last night for a roast beef fundraising dinner at the volunteer fire house. Normally, we would consider Hebron out of our range for events like this. But a new friend, Scott Shevy, who we met over the weekend at a church dinner in Salem, urged us to attend. Scott, who supports the fire company, was up since early morning cooking for the event. When we arrived, his wife Sheri was busy busing tables in the small fire department meeting hall.
Daughter had joined us on a promise to stop at Battenkill Creamery, a few miles down the road, for ice cream later. She’s not a fan of these events. “It’s just a bunch of old people,” she says. And she’s mostly right. For some reason, these dinners are decidedly tilted toward the geriatric set. The food is simple: $12 dollars gets you a modest meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, candied carrots, cole slaw, dinner rolls and gravy, all served family style at the table.
For volunteers like Scott and Sheri, putting on a community dinner like this means lots of work for a modest payoff. “We had to raise the price to make any money at all,” Scott said. “We’ll be lucky if we clear $800.”
For us, it’s a chance to learn more about our neighbors and our adopted community in Upstate New York. If you spent your life in Washington, D.C., you would never know that events like this were taking place in rural corners all around the country. It’s a slice of America that rarely gets much attention, and reminds us how very different are the lives of many of our countrymen from the one we know.
Hebron barely rates a dot on the map. The main point of interest is a newly renovated general store where, for the first time, patrons can now actually purchase a cup of coffee, sit at one of two tables in the rear of the store, and watch the news on a television monitor. The pine floors have been refinished to a handsome sheen, but you need a Dramamine to negotiate all the swells and dips. Our purchase: 16 cents worth of penny candy.
Here, it’s not unusual for people to drive 16 miles farther north to the Price Chopper in Granville for groceries, or 17 miles in the other direction to the Hannaford in Greenwich. Local community life gravitates around the West Hebron Presbyterian Church. Sheri Scott spends free time spinning fiber from her alpacas, attending a knitting club and snow-shoeing local trails with her golden-doodle dog.
Dinner moves right along, with platters of roast beef, bowls of slaw and a gravy boat passing from one end of the table to the other. For dessert, there was a selection of pies–chocolate, cherry cheesecake, coconut custard–and unlimited coffee. When the coffee pitchers on the table ran dry, volunteers were quick to refill them. By 6:30, we were ready to head home. It was already pitch dark outside, and we had unmarked country roads to travel.
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