Fun and Games Are Allowed at This Annual Church Ritual

Evangeline McReynolds arrived at Hart Park in Orange on Saturday morning and began to get things organized, probably unaware of her niche in Orange County tradition.

McReynolds, like hundreds of ministers’ wives before her, was acting as unofficial officiant of this religious summer ritual.

“Your attention please,” she intoned into the public-address system. “It is now 15 minutes to 12. At 15 minutes after 12 we will eat. Don’t ask me anymore.”

Those around her laughed.

“You set something like this up,” she said in an aside, “then you just hope it doesn’t rain, that everybody has a good time--and,” she added, raising her voice in mock authority, “that they follow instructions.”

No one was really worried. This was, after all, a church picnic, an institution deeply rooted and revered in Orange County tradition. A rain-out or a bad time would be as unnatural as the planet leaving orbit. To no one’s surprise, the weather was perfectly appropriate: bright, clear and just the right amount too hot.

This particular church was the Second Baptist Church of Santa Ana, the largest black congregation in Orange County--1,350 members. But it could have been any church now or generations ago. Except for a few modern touches, such as home video cameras, stereos and charcoal lighter, this picnic varied little from the church picnics that drew thousands at a time to Orange County parks as far back as last century.

“Every Labor Day weekend on Saturday is always our annual church picnic--has been for 25 years,” explained the Rev. John McReynolds. “It’s an opportunity for our church family to come together and new members to feel a part.

“And it’s fun.”

One man had punched two holes in a water balloon and was squirting 4-year-old Jonathon Anderson, who shrieked with pleasure and ran away, hoping to be pursued. Kevin Ward was aiming his video camera at 11-year-old Taron Baldwin, interviewing him about his victory in the kids’ division of the watermelon-eating contest. Baldwin had won by virtually submerging his face in the melon slice, which was cut round and flat to cause the maximum difficulty.

Others were being urged to sign up for the egg toss, the volleyball tournament and swimming.

But at the moment, picnickers were gravitating toward Monica Henderson, the caretaker of The Food. For this event, Henderson was taking inventory of lunch not by servings but by tables.

On a cluster of tables were potato chips, cheese chips, corn chips, cheese popcorn, crackers, mixed nuts, candy, scores of hot dogs and buns, perhaps a dozen kinds of salads, six different kinds of baked beans, a vat of green beans, five kinds of rice, cartons of fried chicken, a small city of pies and a 7-foot concentration of other desserts.

Commissioning the potluck dishes, laying them out, serving them and cleaning up is “one nice, big, fun ordeal,” Henderson said.

Fires had been started in three large barbecues, where Don Craig, Don McAfee and Eric Middlebrooks turned, basted and sweated over slabs of ribs and a huge pot of barbecue sauce. Long before the ribs were done, the sightseeing traffic past the grills indicated that the ribs were going to be the hit of the show.

Want to know how to make ribs good enough for a church picnic? According to Middlebrooks, who cooks for a living, it isn’t all that hard. The trick, he said, is getting the ribs truly done clear through. “Boil the ribs in water five or 10 minutes with lots of salt, pepper and onions. Let them sit in the refrigerator overnight, then barbecue them the next day,” he said. “Grill them as slow as you can until they look good, then put them in the pot with the barbecue sauce for a while; that makes sure they’re done inside.”

And what about the sauce? Well, Middlebrooks concedes, “the sauce is the secret,” a secret he is not giving out at present.

As it turned out, Evangeline McReynolds had done an extraordinarily good job of organizing, for the food was served only 20 minutes late--after the assistant pastor, the Rev. Sam Craig, gave the brief blessing of the meal: “We’re thankful for the food,” he prayed, “and we’re thankful for the people who are gonna eat the food.”