This year I and a young man Arliano put up a newly designed (with help from another neighbor Rob W.) larger table that resembled a turntable (for record playing) and in the center I anchored the table to a stand with a stack of LPs. I added a new box for clean glasses and a green box for the dirty [that one didn't work as well people had trouble understadning what to do with their used glasses]. I put the black notecard box with blanks and the 'if so moved...' sign out and a white notecard box for the new messages.

Last year it took a while before the notecard began to fill up, this year it was as though everyone had learned (though most people had not stopped last year) and notes began to appear almost immediately.

The other significant thing that happened was that the neighborhood really started to take advantage of the table and chairs, sitting and looking out at the lake and mountain. You can read one man did his home work. Arliano and Parker would come and play chess and drink tea. There was a couple who were giving each other full body massages. People came to eat take-out dinner or lunch.

None of that really happened last year.

I put on 2 music concerts and we did a dance performance that was very well attended in the park in front of the table, I intend to do more of that next year.

One man would drive his truck onto the grass and attach one end of a hammock to his fender and the other end to a tree and nap and drink tea for the afternoon, he may have done it more often but I saw him twice.

So the project has become more of a community place than it has been in the many years past that I have lived here.

The cards are interesting and If I had kept on top of it they would be in order of time/date but I couldn't keep up this year, I apologize, maybe next year will be easier or less full with performances of my own.

The weather has been so different this year that it influenced when I put the table out and with increased visitors I have had to wash glasses much more often and make more tea than I did last year. The Pot(s) were replaced by 2 liter canning jars, a green/pearl/jasmine tea and an herbal mint version. Last year's glasses were duralux 3 ounce glasses and this year I replaced them with 4 ounce canning jars, easier to clean and pretty sturdy though some have 'disappeared' and a few got broken so I've used about 36 glasses this year.

We'll see how I feel about next year but I think that it's doing something, a service, so it will need to continue.

........Thanks for reading
........Jay