EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
By Ruth Luse
I wish I could have walked away with the cash receipts from the various food and drink concessions on Friday evening "Hopewell Valley Night at Waterfront Park." I don’t think I could have retired, but I’m sure I’d have been able to buy myself and my family lots of neat things. Valley parents must have spent thousands!
Speaking of neat things, the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliancesponsored Trenton Thunder baseball get-together for Valley families is definitely one. The annual event, which usually is a sellout, brings the community together for an evening of fun and recreation and, need I mention, food and drink in abundance.
What, of course, is a ballgame without hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, cotton candy, soda and the many other sugary and fat-filled yummies that entice children to drive their parents crazy while they if true baseball fans are trying to keep tabs on who’s at bat and the score?
Having been a baseball fanatic since I was 12, it doesn’t take much to get me to a game. I have been to a few Valley nights at the Thunder and each time I leave, I forget one thing. One does not go to this particular event if one expects to watch the game in earnest. It is not an evening for people who expect to see each and every play, or even to know what’s going on on the field. It is a night for getting together with friends, old and new, and your friends’ children and their friends, and so on and so on.
While perched in my seat in Section C, I finally gave up on watching the game and spent most of my time looking at families with young children, also seated occasionally, I would say, because they were never still in the rows in front of me. Patient parents made nonstop trips up the steps and back with all sorts of food, drinks and souvenirs. Older youngsters, without parents, were involved with their cell phones and searching the faces in the crowd for people they knew. The game on the field was, for many, just a very pleasant backdrop for socialization on a beautiful cool late spring night. Nothing wrong with that.
I began looking for people I knew. That wasn’t easy. Being a member of the older generation limits one’s horizons, especially at an event focused on children. But an old friend found me. She probably won’t appreciate this mention, but I really was glad to see Valerie Hansen (Ms. Wayne Hansen). It was perfectly logical for the Hansens to be at the game, because that family has been deeply involved in recreational baseball for children in Hopewell Valley for as long as I can remember. There’s even a Hansen Field near the township’s municipal complex. And, Mrs. Hansen, now retired, was one of the first people I got to know when covering matters related to the Hopewell Valley Regional School District. She worked for years in the central office and usually could fill me in on what was going on.
It was fun to see the small boys (who looked like ants from the seats above) part of the local Field of Dreams team join members of the Trenton Thunder on the field for a moment and get recognition from the crowd. It was uplifting to hear members of the Hopewell Valley Chorus sing the national anthem. It was just great being there.
I join the 500 or so other Hopewell Valley attendees who enjoyed being at the game. And I thank Heidi Kahme, the new leader of the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance; her predecessor, Sheryl Stone, who helped make this special night for Valley families possible; and the many volunteers who keep this and other Municipal Alliance events going yearly.
It was, as usual, a good time for me and for our community!

