Wessyngton Road Night Out

It's been a while since we planned anything on Wessyngton Road in observance of National Night Out.  I think we did do it years ago, but we didn't actually have our event on the Tuesday night that the National Association of Town Watch designated for the national observance.  It always seemed awkward, having an event on a Tuesday night after school has already started, and August is hot in Atlanta, so it just never seemed like an optimal time to try to get anyone to participate in a neighborhood event.  (Texas, never quite part of the United States, actually observes National Night Out in October.)

This year National Night Out was August 7.  It seemed like it might be nice to do something, so we were trying to think of what might work -- something that would require minimal preparation, and wouldn't last very long, and might fit in between dinner and bedtime for the families with school-aged children.  We went with ice cream at the picnic tables at Morningside Presbyterian Church.  People brought ice cream and whipped cream and sprinkles and fruit and brownies, and showed up for just an hour, between 8 and 9 p.m.  The only set up required was putting table clothes on the tables, and Lynsley brought some trash bags.  We didn't really know how many people to expect -- some people came who we hadn't heard from, and some people who said they'd try to make it didn't -- but we ended up with more than 30 neighbors there, and plenty of ice cream.

National Night Out is all about building relationships not only within neighborhoods but between neighborhoods and local law enforcement.  I was expecting our event to be pretty small -- just some of the neighbors who live on one block on one street -- and if there was going to be an MLPA- or Virginia Highland-wide event, it wasn't realistic for us to expect anyone from the Atlanta Police Department to show up at ours.  But as best I could tell there were no other events planned nearby, so I went ahead and asked that an invitation be forwarded to Zone 2.  Then I forgot about it.

I did sign us up as an official National Night Out event, and subsequently got a couple of things in the mail from the National Association of Town Watch folks.  Then, about two weeks before the event, I got an email from someone in city government, wanting to know if I wanted someone from the City of Atlanta government to come to our event.  Sure, I replied, it would be great if someone -- anyone -- from the Atlanta Police Department could come.  Then I heard from someone in the Department of Public Works, and someone in the Office of the City Council President.  I wasn't sure if we were going to have a lot of people from the city come, or if they just hadn't made up their minds about who was coming to our little event in Morningside.

We ended up having lots of guests, and it was terrific.  Over the course of the evening we had Deputy Chief Propes from the Atlanta Police Department, along with Major Hobbs from Zone 2, someone from the Crime Prevention Unit in Zone 2, a couple of officers from Zone Six, and -- perhaps most amazing of all -- two officers on horseback from the APD's mounted patrol.  There was someone from the Mayor's office, and the person who had contacted me from the Office of the City Council President came by, too.  And the some of the firefighters from Station No. 19 came with the firetruck.  Some of the visitors were there for the entire event, others come from another NNO event and left early to make it to a third one, but we were surprised and delighted to have so many guests come to our event.

Thanks to everyone who came last Tuesday for helping us have a great National Night Out.  It was not hard to organize and I think everyone who came had a good time.  There was ice cream, and horses, and a fire truck.  What could be better than that, on a Tuesday night?

I can only only think of one thing.  If only someone from the Department of Solid Waste had come, and I could have asked them how we get that missing Herbie Curbie replaced.