DIshing in Dawn

Gladys took my $7 and welcomed me. Pat led me to the food table and invited me to sit at her table with Alma and Evelyn. Irene was in charge of the whole event and walked the room like a general overseeing her troops. Tilly wasn't there at the moment, but she'd done loads of work behind the scenes. And Delores made the coleslaw, a fact I know only because she'd used a Magic Marker to write her name across the lid of the enormous pink Tupperware bowl that held it, a bowl that was the width of my shoulders.

What's in a vintage name? Everything it would appear when you're at a Fish Fry Benefit at the Dawn Community Center in Hanover County. As I've mentioned before, I love community eating events, like this and this, the kind that don't much happen anymore except in more rural areas. Having never been to a fish fry and jumble sale, I'd had this date marked on my calendar since the salt fish breakfast at the firehouse.

The community of Dawn is trying to raise funds to build a new library and, being the book nerd that I am, I wanted to help support that effort. Plus I love some good fried trout and that's what was on the menu, along with Delores' coleslaw, another neighbor's potato salad, which could have been made with my own mother's recipe, and someone else's baked beans containing almost as much bacon as beans in them.

A White House roll completed the plate and for dessert, they had slices of lemon pound cake in individual baggies in case you were too full and wanted to take yours home (I did, after taking one bite of the cake crust, my favorite part). What more could a city girl want?

The trout was being fried up continuously by two sweaty volunteers out behind the community center, a hot as hell effort on a day like today. It was so perfectly cooked that I didn't even bother with propriety and just used my plastic fork to hold it in place while I tore off crispy bites of the enormous piece I'd been given.

My table mates were full of curiosity about how I'd found out about the event and why I would bother driving up 301 for it. I explained my love for books (and fried trout) and my enthusiasm for community eating events. After a while, we were so comfortable with each other that we started talking about ourselves; Pat is a transplant from NOVA, so we discussed the shift to central Virginia that we've both made. Alma hates wearing athletic shoes because they make her feet feel confined, so we talked about going barefoot versus open-style shoes.

Evelyn just wanted to get my take on upcoming events and what other city folk might find interesting enough to drive up for. As the least representative person to speak for my fellow Richmonders, I just suggested better advertising (they didn't even have a sign for today's event) so that they might reach other oddballs like me. Alma only half-jokingly suggested that they needed me on their Board. Gladys asked for my e-mail address so that they could notify me of future fundraisers.

I had such a good time lunching with these ladies and enjoying the fruits of the community's labor. When I'd first come in, I must have stuck out like a sore thumb, though, because one of the first questions directed at me had been, "Are you from Ladysmith?" Despite that erroneous assumption, they'd kindly taken to me as if I'd just moved to Dawn and they were the welcoming committee.

I was terribly flattered that they were as interested in talking to me as I was to them. As we said our goodbyes well over an hour later, they were all but beaming at me. Pat capped it off with, "You're going to be the talk of our next Board meeting."

No, no, I'm just a fish fry fan. You charming ladies did me the favor. Let's get that library built.