Brown: Country hostess a rare breed

There are a lot of hats for people to wear. In the country there are fewer heads to fill those hats. Some hats are harder to find and that just makes the few and far between who wear them all the more notable. One of those rare hats is hard to describe; party-planner, host/hostess are both accurate but incomplete. In a futile attempt to describe the essence of the position, I’d call it the one-who-arranges-get-togethers. The term get-together is more accurate and meaningful that party. It implies the meeting of folks who know each other, and in truth, the meeting of folks who ought to know each other. That is the true gift of the country hostess, that knack for knowing who to put together; the ability to make a get-together something special that

Audra Brown

Down on the Farm

left you permanently better off for being there and visiting with the other folks that were there, too.

It’s a hard hat to fill. Do you know how hard it is to convince far-flung farmers and ranchers and other folks who live only a bit farther from town than they do from each other? And they live spread out for a reason.

Social gatherings are not opposed, but they are frequently overlooked or overridden by seemingly superior priorities. A person who can consistently gather these sorts of characters, not only once, but to the point that an invite to her parties was something more than just another social occasion, a person like that is something special.

I’m certain that this archetypal mastermind of meet-ups has been a treasured fixture for many ages. When the invitations were delivered horseback, and the distances were even harder to cross, that person put on the get-togethers that introduced friends, future mates, and important networking connections.

There is something magical about such shindigs that the marvels of modern social networking, for all their amazing breadth and possibility, cannot quite replicate. The great country hostess is determined, wise, and tireless, for anything less would not be capable of the making the wonderful get-togethers happen by bringing together the busy, distant, and just plain stubborn.

Audra Brown tips her hat as one of the great ones passes. Contact her at: [email protected].