The Family

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.
~Erma Bombeck

The common thread for most of those that showed up for our reunion started with these two...

my great grandparents.

We had re-scheduled the family reunion to coincide with the town fair because last year by chance they fell on the same day it worked out so well. The two events are across the street from each other so the older kids (being forced to watch the younger ones) go to the fair and the adults sit, eat and re-tell stories.

The day started with rain and the forecast of 1-2 inches which didn't bode well for the new plan. However, it did clear up allowing everyone to enjoy their day. There was a shower in the middle of the day, but it didn't ruin things, it just gave everyone something more to look and talk about. "Remember, as far as anyone knows, we're a nice, normal family."~Homer Simpson

We need to exit the park at dark because the fireworks that mark the end of the fair are done from there. This year we went to a friend's house on the other side of the river...the fog rolled in...the fireworks started but other than the booms we didn't see much more than this...!

Everyone came home and immediately fell right to sleep from exhaustion. For the most part we don't see each other often and it is nice to have that one day just to reconnect.

"Some family trees bear an enormous crop of nuts." ~Unknown

And sometimes we marry them. Years ago I worked on the family genealogy. The first attempt was mostly verbal tidbits with some info being disputed by the different factors. So I decided to document everything. I hauled out huge volumes of birth, marriage and death certificates. I copied all of them and the wills, crawled thru cemetary after cemetary, paid for online access to census reports and bought a genealogy program. I showed up at one of the reunions with a printed copy ...one of the relatives had a wife which took offense to the fact that her husband's child with another woman was mentioned. Unbeknowst to me until after the reunion she ripped the page out of the book. Needless to say I have kept my distance from this woman during the following years. She is of another generation and may have been embarrassed no sense bringing attention to it OR she is just a b*tch and I am not going to feed into it. Everyone knows the truth anyhow. Yesterday that same woman came up to me and asked if I still had the genealogy. I told her I did, hackles immediately going up. She then had the audacity to ask me for a copy because her son and his wife are doing genealogy and it would save them alot of work. Well I did my momma proud and didn't beat her with her own cane. I told her it was in storage (which it is) and I would see what I could do when we unpacked everything. Then I made a quick exit stage left before momma's teachings went right down the drain. After ruining my book she wants a copy!!!! ARGGHHH Today I have to laugh because this is a prime example of what makes family family like it or not.