Happy Hour

I've decided that what is missing from the suburban day-to-day life is the Friday night watering hole experience.  The tribal gathering around the fire.  The bowling league.  The Irish pub.  I  want a weekly tete-a-tete (look it up) with my buds.  I want to have a place I can go where there will be someone, anyone, who I know and who will be glad to see me.  Better yet, a few people who know me and are glad to see me, and glad to see each other, too.

So, I have created the Happy Hour Task Force to research and find an appropriate bar for a weekly drop in.  Tonight we had our first meeting.  I meant to get around to an agenda and name tags but we got along without them.  We checked out the pool hall and a tapas restaurant and then settled in at the upscale bar for white wine and a mixed drink.  Three people, five drinks between us, so we're not the heavy lifters.  This place has good potential, though, and I'll send out an invite for next week's happy hour.

Don't you think we need this, we middle-agers?  In our college years and early twenties we had that community, that amorphous amoeba of friends who gathered weekly or daily.  Now that we live in the burbs we rarely meet in groups.  We see one another but there is no spark, no unpredictable possibility that comes from having a group together.  Or at least it doesn't happen often enough.  The Happy Hour Task Force will trudge on in behalf of the group.  Watch for minutes of the upcoming meetings.  Perhaps sign up for a committee yourself.