Personification: Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities. The English term for prosopopeia (pro-so-po-pe’-i-a) or ethopoeia (e-tho-po’-ia): the description and portrayal of a character (natural propensities, manners and affections, etc.).
I looked into the forest and it said “Cut me down. Make me into picnic tables.” This was a familiar request. My Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather Willard Stick in invented the picnic table, and sort of like Johnny Appleseed, “planted” them in public places throughout the New England states. He planted his first picnic table in Sterling, Massachusetts. Today, that picnic table is preserved under a canopy to commemorate the first “planting.” In the 60s it was set on fire by a crowd of hippies protesting its “forcing people” to face off in lines on either side of the table leading to conflict, and even food fights . They favored circular tables emphasizing unity and love. The fire was quickly extinguished and the demonstrators were arrested. They made t-shirts that said “Round not Rectangular” that were popular for a couple weeks and disappeared from the streets of Boston where the protesters had a commune.
Since then, of course, the picnic table has established itself once and for all as a staple of public places, and also private gatherings. Many a hot dog and hamburger has been consumed at picnic tables, along with beans, coleslaw with pineapple chunks, potato salad, and jello with little marshmallows mixed in.
My lifelong dream had been to build the word’s biggest picnic table. I’ve thought about it since high school when I told my girlfriend about it, and she told everybody else about it. I was ridiculed by my peers at “Hoity Toit Prep” for having working class dreams for my future—picnic tables were for losers. When they ate outside, they would have their servants carry a table and chairs outside. If they wanted eat outside at a park, their servants would load a table and chairs in the estate’s pickup truck and drive them to, and unload them at the site of the picnic.
The ridicule didn’t deter me. I was rich, but I didn’t care. I had worked for the past 20 years at the factory overseeing the construction of our picnic tables. Now, it was time to realize my dream. I purchased a hill top in Vermont with an outstanding view of a valley.
I assembled the best woodworkers in the world from Germany’s Black Forest. These men and women were renowned for their ability to build cuckoo cloaks with one hand while being blindfolded. Next, I drew up plans. Briefly, the table’s top will be the size of a football field. The table will 200 ft. tall. There will be two elevators at each end of the table. They will be designed as large picnic baskets and will be outside in full view, going up and down. There will be a restaurant on the tabletop designed to look like a picnic basket. The menu will include only picnic food, and, of course, the seating will consist of picnic tables. Last, there will be a corn hole court at one end of the tabletop and a tether ball court at the other. The whole will be named “Picnic Immortal.”
The picnic park’s name is intended to hint that “the picnic” is an activity that could be could considered sacred and could be one of our activities in the afterlife. In fact, Heaven could be an eternal picnic. I have begun to see: clearly, the table prepared in Palm 25:3 is a picnic table. The picnic table is frequently a site of familial love. It can be understood as a shrine, with baked beans and hot dogs, and all the rest, taken as sacraments and their eating as a kind of “table top” communion—kind of like the last supper which was eaten at a picnic table.
Now that I see the spiritual significance of the picnic table, I have gathered a small group of followers. We wear small picnic baskets around our necks that we purchase from a company that sells miniature dollhouse items made out of plastic. As I continue my activities, I prophesy I will crucified on a picnic table. Today a picnic table said to me: “Don’t fret Mr. Stick—have a cold fried chicken drumstick and a couple scoops of potato salad.”
POSTSCRIPT
Mr. Stick’s dream picnic table was never built. After many court hearings, he was judged incompetent to run the picnic table business. He has been admitted to “Rainbow’s End,” a private psychiatric rehabilitation hospital. His brother told us “Toward the end he wore a white robe and carried a beaver in a picnic basket who was going to be his German workers’ supervisor. Now he makes toothpick picnic tables and sells them in the hospital’s gift shop.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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