Family Reunions

“Welcome, welcome… how ya been?”

Thus began another iteration of the family reunion. My parents’ generation within my mom’s side of the family had a lot of organization skills. One of the by products of this character trait was an annual family reunion gathering that moved around based on what segment of the family tree was going to be hosting this year’s event.

As I was growing up, it was always assumed that Labor Day weekend would be spent in the company of a lot of folks, generations of folks, many whom I wouldn’t know nor would I really ever get to know.

The locales would change, we would be Western New York one year, in the northern tier of the state the next. Sometimes we had a family in Rhode Island that hosted the event in a rented pavilion in a park in the outskirts of Providence.

When we were very small this was a royal pain. As we approached puberty, there were a few years when my cousins, my sister and I would find the opportunity to squeak out some fun from the get together.

As we reached the later portion of the teenage years, my sister and I rebelled. I think my mom and dad attended a few more and then the whole practiced wound down to only a very few folks and they were from branches of the family that we were even less familiar with.

In retrospect, I kind of wished that I had made an effort to reach out to this event in my adulthood. I’m not sure my parents’ were truly unhappy about the practice dwindling away but, when my Aunt (my mom’s oldest sister) passed away, the event management and planning had to fall to someone else and I believe that it initial fell to my Mom’s younger brother but, it was pretty much a very different event. My aunt had been the sole of the event and she kept meticulous family tree history within her archives. I have no idea what fate those archives have taken since her passing and the passing of my last remaining uncle in that branch of the family.

I probably was guilty of foregoing a chance that will forever be denied me now to get a glimpse into my ancestry. I did this primarily in the throes of youthful hubris, thinking that there wasn’t anything I needed to learn from those folks nor was there any value in changing my plans or devoting my time to the pursuit of either engaging in a relationship with my elders or in maintaining the ones I had.

My mom was the person that was always the one who put family first. It was at her behest that we participated in as many of the reunion gatherings that we did. She was the one that insisted that we make many trips up and back to the northern tier (some 300 miles each way) to visit her siblings and the family members from my dad’s side of the family. When I was younger we did this at least a 10 times a year. We did this even though it was a rare occurrence for any of the folks we visited regular to make the sojourn down to our downstate little town where my mom and dad had made their home.

The fondest memories of those family reunion was when I was perhaps 12 – 14. The bulk of my impression with the two family reunions that took place in those years was organizing a softball game with my cousins and some of the older generation. The fact that I loved baseball and loved playing (with anyone and literally at the drop of a hat) contributed to these two years becoming fond memories.

I had played baseball in little league and had only recently “aged out.” There wasn’t a provision for kids of my age group to play ball unless you happened to be lucky (and skillful enough) to make a junior varsity or varsity team within the school district. I was not that skilled. I played with passion but, little skill. Thus my ball playing days were relegated to gym class after my teen years began.

In those two years the reunion event was hosted in Rhode Island both years. Because the venue featured a great field, this was truly a treat. There was no such field resources in any of the other areas that the reunion was hosted for the next decade.

I remember that the first year the team I wound up on was victorious by a fair margin. I seem to remember that the teams were basically my generation versus the older generation. The following year was almost better even though the team I wound up playing for was not going to win. The team make up was a mix of both generations. The game was very competitive and a lot of fun.

I think even more fun than the game that year was that after the food was ready and some folks adjourned to join the rest of the family at the dining tables, some of us continued on in what was basically a practice. I recall that practice fondly as I think I was able to perform some of the best hitting that I was ever able to pull off in my life.