My mother and her 7 sibs were a prolific bunch in their heyday. They and their spouses produced 39 children from the mid 1940s until the early 1970s. This coming Saturday a goodly percentage of the 37 living cousins, their extended families, and a few members of Mom’s greatest generation will gather for a family reunion. Here are the top ten reasons I’m looking forward to the day.
10. We all remember Lawrence Welk differently from the rest of the world. To us, he’s not the maestro of national television’s squeaky cleanest dance band of the 1960s. To us, he’s the leader of a traveling 1930s and 1940s North Dakota band that sometimes played in dance halls around the midwest. They were so wild our parents weren’t allowed to attend their dances for fear of being corrupted.
9. After lunch, we reinact reunions of our childhood. It starts when someone asks for a dime to go swimming. (Yes, way back when pool admission was one thin dime.) Then everyone responds in unison, “Ask in 30 minutes, once your food’s had time to settle.”
8. We share the same memories of Grandma Josie’s kitchen: sugar bread eaten in the backyard on painted aluminum chairs, Grandpa’s pink wintergreen mints and Grandma’s red hot candies hidden in the top shelf of the cupboard by the refrigerator, and oatmeal raisin cookies stored in the hat box in the bottom shelf of the cupboard across from the stove.
7. Everyone shares tips for raising African violets and geraniums.
6. It’s rare to be with so many people who take such pride in the state of their vegetable gardens.
5. We all appreciate the value of fresh tomatoes and kohlrabi.
4. Our reunions are a rare opportunity for math nerds and theater geeks to rub shoulders, because we’ve got plenty of both.
3. Being with my older cousins makes me feel young again.
2. I see the faces of Grandpa Hess, Grandma Josie, and my aunts and uncles in the faces around me.
1. Reunions with my cousins renew the security and sense of belonging I experienced at family gatherings during childhood. Could I ask for anything more?
