It's a Southern thang

As much a part of culture below the Mason-Dixon line as a cotillion in the springtime is the annual get-together known as 'the fambly ree-yoon-yun'.

It is the one time that the lifelong secrets of anyone and everyone that probably should be left in the skeleton-filled closet are trotted out as fodder over Aunt Ethelene's hot potato casserole. And no one seems to mind because the casserole is that dang good.

Who got married, who died, who is hanging around with whom and most importantly - who has the dirt on the holier than thou - makes attendance mandatory.

I'll admit that as a child, I was dragged to several of these festivals of family and hugged up to the bosom of aunts, uncles and cousins who I didn't even know I had. I like a good hug as much as the next person, but after a morning of being squeezed like the Charmin, I began to be a bit like Mr. Whipple and rebel against the ministrations of people I would have never known on a street corner then - or now.

The food at reunions is always fun. We had enough people who had education past fourth grade who insured the food would remain at proper temperature to prevent major catastrophe or an emergency 'am-bo-lance ride uptown to the horse-pital'. The variety of covered dishes could have made a fine cookbook in and of itself. MMMMMM!!

Every family seems to have one person, slightly off center, who runs themselves ragged trying to make everyone else participate in an itinerary so cram packed full of 'special moments together' that it would make the Care Bears barf. Most of the family half heartedly goes along with these painstaking details just to be nice. What they'd rather do is just gab and eat. And then, when they are full of both conversation and casserole, take a nice nap under the branches of a well groomed magnolia.

I prefer a gathering maybe once a day where there is no defined sense of flow and people can be free to actually get to know each other during the natural course of time.

There is something so liberating about the choice of just how you will spend your time: listening to old Uncle Petey tell about his enlarged prostate again ('Doc Mathis said it dang near busted all on him when he checked it the last time on account of it bein' bigger than a June melon') or playing Frisbee with the cousins who you actually DO remember and grew up with during summers at your grandparents farm. Sure, you'll be sore after the Frisbee games, but at least you won't have a horrible visual image of Uncle Petey's personal disorder that will haunt you to your dying day.

I know that there are people who have such absolutely defined sense of what 'should' be happening that they become uncomfortable with our usual standard of activity which boils down to this sentence: 'When all y'all kids get done runnin' around your side of the park, holler on the walkie-talkie and we'll tell you where to meet for supper."

This infuriates people who can't leave their day planner at home - even when they go on vacation. I have no trouble leaving mine at home. It NEEDS to be left from time to time so that I can remind myself that I used to have fun and can still manage to do so on occassion. Of course, it also infuriates the relatives who believe they 'know best' and refuse to acknowlege that you aren't six anymore and can't be compelled to make nice and do what they say just because they are older. Age doesn't mean wisdom. It just means wrinkles.

We do need to have a get-together with the family soon. I'd love to have it somewhere centrally located that would be fun for everyone. There will never be a time where everyone will be able to attend. That's called LIFE. But it would be nice to not have every spare minute planned to death and accounted for. No vacation is fun when you can't let your mind and body just wander.

There will always be people at the reunion you'd rather see and people that aren't all that exciting to see. That is part of being a family. I try to keep that in perspective by reminding myself that for every person I am not thrilled to be around, there are probably tens if not hundreds who are not thrilled to see ME.

But we show up despite knowing that it will be a mixed bag of nuts. Then again, that is precisely WHY we show up. So that we can compare ourselves to the other nuts that came from the family tree and see just where we fit into the roots and branches that comprise both our history and our future.

The main hope is to go home thanking God for all of your blessings...that and to come away with the absolute assurance and rejoicing of being able to say "Thank God I am not as (fill in your favorite adjective) as my stupid cousin (fill in the name of your screwiest relative)!"

And be sure and get a serving of that potato casserole. It won't last long because it's just TOO GOOD!