IF IT'S MEMORIAL DAY , IT MUST BE TIME FOR THE REUNION
What a day.
Tomorrow is my wife's family reunion.
They decided this year to have hot dogs and burgers on the grill. So much less work.
Yeah. Right!
Depends on who gets that less work, I reckon.
See, we normally contribute on Saturday, the loan of three tables, twelve chairs. This year we contribute those three tables, twelve chairs and my large charcoal grill. Which had to be cleaned of course. And then one of the top hinges came up missing and the pin dropped out of the other one. And it was on the back porch and I had to get it into the driveway to load into the truck.
The hinge was repaired by using a hex wrench through the hole.
We also usually prepare banana pudding, which we are also doing this year. We usually prepare baked beans, which we are doing this year. We also supply various items such as napkins, spoons, forks, knives, plates, cups, the normal picnic supplies. And, I almost forgot, sixty or so charbroiled chicken breasts, done the night before (which is the only thing not done this year that we normally do) and taken to the site on Sunday for the reunion.
So I have the truck loaded now, ready to take it all to my sister-in-laws- place. And guess what I get to do tomorrow? Yeah. Get there early, fire up my grill, my son-in-law's grill (he works at a church and can't be there until about 1 PM), and maybe my brother-in-law's grill too. Once at proper temperature, I can then begin grilling the burgers and the chicken I just know someone will bring and maybe even a steak or two.
So I can be hot and sweaty and stinky for lunch--while everyone else just brings a few chips, some sodas, a few bottles of water, some condiments (by the way, Mary and I supply those also) and a few desserts.
And then I get to go back Monday and pick up the grill and the tables and the chairs.
And you know what? I enjoy this. I really do. Because no one else will do what Mary and I do and do it as well as we do. Yet we let them think they do so much more than us. Because it makes them feel good.
But next year, the grill stays home.
I looked back through the photo albums (yes, we actually do have albums of photos) and picked out eight from our original reunion here at our house back in 1980. I scanned and printed them as 4 x 6's and framed them around an 8 x 10 of my mother- and father-in-law and their eight children--from the same reunion back in 1980, on a standard poster board, then hand wrote the notation of what the pictures were in dayglo highlighter. Just a little surprise for the folks.
More another time.
Tomorrow is my wife's family reunion.
They decided this year to have hot dogs and burgers on the grill. So much less work.
Yeah. Right!
Depends on who gets that less work, I reckon.
See, we normally contribute on Saturday, the loan of three tables, twelve chairs. This year we contribute those three tables, twelve chairs and my large charcoal grill. Which had to be cleaned of course. And then one of the top hinges came up missing and the pin dropped out of the other one. And it was on the back porch and I had to get it into the driveway to load into the truck.
The hinge was repaired by using a hex wrench through the hole.
We also usually prepare banana pudding, which we are also doing this year. We usually prepare baked beans, which we are doing this year. We also supply various items such as napkins, spoons, forks, knives, plates, cups, the normal picnic supplies. And, I almost forgot, sixty or so charbroiled chicken breasts, done the night before (which is the only thing not done this year that we normally do) and taken to the site on Sunday for the reunion.
So I have the truck loaded now, ready to take it all to my sister-in-laws- place. And guess what I get to do tomorrow? Yeah. Get there early, fire up my grill, my son-in-law's grill (he works at a church and can't be there until about 1 PM), and maybe my brother-in-law's grill too. Once at proper temperature, I can then begin grilling the burgers and the chicken I just know someone will bring and maybe even a steak or two.
So I can be hot and sweaty and stinky for lunch--while everyone else just brings a few chips, some sodas, a few bottles of water, some condiments (by the way, Mary and I supply those also) and a few desserts.
And then I get to go back Monday and pick up the grill and the tables and the chairs.
And you know what? I enjoy this. I really do. Because no one else will do what Mary and I do and do it as well as we do. Yet we let them think they do so much more than us. Because it makes them feel good.
But next year, the grill stays home.
I looked back through the photo albums (yes, we actually do have albums of photos) and picked out eight from our original reunion here at our house back in 1980. I scanned and printed them as 4 x 6's and framed them around an 8 x 10 of my mother- and father-in-law and their eight children--from the same reunion back in 1980, on a standard poster board, then hand wrote the notation of what the pictures were in dayglo highlighter. Just a little surprise for the folks.
More another time.
posted by tanstaafl | 4:33 PM
3 Comments:
I hope you're having fun today, and I hope everyone enjoys their surprise!
Year before last, someone in our family did the same thing--and I've noticed that the older the regulars get, the more pictures everyone takes. And I'm glad. Reunions aren't all that common anymore and most of us younger folks don't seem all that interested in the work it takes to pull one off.
I hope you and your wife have a wonderful day. (LOL, and I bet your grill goes again next year--sounds like my grandmother swearing no more cats or dogs, and they always get another cat or dog, LOL) :)
Love to you both.
Yeah, Michelle, we made it through it. Wow, am I bushed. And dehydrated.
We got there (Salt Rock) at about 11:35 AM. I unloaded the car (can't take the truck today, Mary cannot climb up into that high puddle jumper yet) and then got the grill ready. Only prepared mine , since I didn't think the turnout would support any more running. And was proven right, unfortunately.
We started this reunion when Mary and I and the kids moved back here from California in 1980 (actually 1979, but we didn't buy our place until 1980--February 1). We settled on the Sunday before Memorial Day because there are other reunions for branches of the same family that hit a few weeks earlier to a few months later (kind of like yours, Michelle, except that we have about thirty of them and just decided that our old folks deserved their own.
The first year, we had about fifty or so people, the second year about 100 to 120, the third about 80, and then it leveled off at about 60 while we were out of the area again and unable to marshal the program. While we were out in Ohio and Michigan, we had to move the reunion to my mother-in-laws house because that is where Mary's father insisted it be held. And it has been there ever since, since 1984.
He died back in 1995 and Granny left us in 2006. And now I deem it imperative to do whatever must be done to keep it vital and alive for the kids coming up.
Talking with my daughter-in-law, Tammie, today, I told her that seven or eight years ago I was bewailing the fact that we were getting to be an old family, that there were no new ones being born, and I was concerned about that. But looking around today, I saw about ten or twelve that were under eight years of age. So there is hope and I want to do everything I can to preserve this heritage for them. And that, of course, is one of the prime movers in my genealogical research, and the small histories I have put together for subsequent family heads.
But, no, now that the grill experiment has been done, someone else may do the same thing, but not me. I am just the trendsetter. You mentioned in one of your recent posts that you thought I would probably have been a good teacher, but I was retired. Well, I am retired, but I have always been a teacher and I will never stop teaching, just as I will never stop learning and never stop loving.
But se, my methodology is one of 'monkey see, monkey do.' I don't expect that the grilling thing will happen next year or even the next after that. But in a few years someone will say, "Boy can you remember the day old Ray got so hot with that grill?" And , "Yeah, but it sure was good, wasn't it?" And suddenly one of the group will say, "Hey, why don't we try that again,? It sounds like fun again." And there is the lesson.
And the transfer to the next generation all in one. My son-in-law is already in favor of doing it again, because he didn't get the chance this year, due to the low attendance. But he wants to do something other than burger and weenies. And that is fine.
Off the subject, but still on it really. If you ever run across an old book (copyright about 1948) called "Earth Abides", buy it and read it. It explains better than I can what I base my teaching philosophy on.
So, thanks for your love. We got that smack right on the cheeks and appreciate it.
Oh, by the way, we ended up with fifty at my best count today, give or take a few. So not a bad day when I really only expected maybe 35 or 40. And if three of my families from Michigan hadn't had their plates already full by virtue of their own kids graduations, weddings, and college functions, we would have had an additional 20 or so. And we had strictly family this year, and did not have the 15 or 20 friends of friends we normally have.
But those that were there were all loved and appreciated and we all had a good time reminiscing--and watching the little ones run generally amok! And that last part is the best.
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