Monday, September 17, 2007

The 1964 Family Reunion Tour

There is a tradition in many families around the country and I suppose around the world called the Family Reunion. This summer I have attended two one paternal, one maternal.

On Labor Day Saturday my father's clan gathered at my parent's home. The crowd was down this year over last but last year the gathering was also the day that that we buried my father's ashes, with a spectacle such as that you can usually draw a little bigger crowd and frankly, it's a little hard to top the next year, horseshoes and corn toss games tend to just not be the same.

My father was part of what is now known as a blended family, when my grandparents were wed I expect it was more a matter of you got 'em and I got 'em they'll just have to get used to it. My Grandma Bryant told me once that she worked hard at making the family one. “If one of them needed a whippin' I whipped them all just so they understood I wasn't playing favorites.” I don't know how true that was, but I can somehow see her doing it for a while so that everyone understood. The patriarch and matriarch of the Bryant Clan are both laid to rest now, as are a couple of the children and a couple of their grandchildren and yet, when they gather there is still a boat load of us.

I have a mind for memory of small details. This can be especially maddening at times, well, right now I can think of two times, one is when I forget something and the other is when my sister, Georgia, swears that I am making the stuff up. I'm a storyteller, but the things that I recall seem real enough to have actually happened or been and in many cases there are photos to back up my memory, it's just finding the picture in the right album to prove it. So it is with this in mind that I offer this yarn based on memories from a family reunion the summer of 1964.

My Grandma Bryant, my father's step mother, though he never called her that, was somewhat famous for her iced tea. I have to agree that it was better than most and it was produced under rigorous standards and quality control was closely overseen. At the 1964 reunion I was probably not quite four years old, but very nigh unto it, Grandma had made her renowned brew and it was served in a faded red, dented and chipped three gallon Thermos like container that had a silver spigot on the front of it that worked like a kitchen sink. For some reason, its construction and operation has stuck in my mind. I know the container was an item that was tossed when my grandmother broke up housekeeping when Grandpa died shortly after their fiftieth wedding anniversary, bear in mind each had been married before. As far as I'm concerned that container was worthy of a spot in the Smithsonian collection.

There were rides on a pony and more in my grandfather's goat drawn cart. I remember seeing it, but I don't recall a ride. There may have been a cut out of a green alligator holding a tape measure with a sign that read, “you must be this tall to ride this ride.” I'm sure that I would not have made it very far against the sign.

From this particular day there is a photo of my family taken by the side of the house. My little sister Georgia and I dressed in matching outfits and my mother in a checked sleeveless dress that in those days were called, “shifts”. We won't talk about her longest hair ever and her white cat glasses. My father slim and handsome in chinos and a white t shirt.

I remember other gatherings of the Bryant clan, but not quite as clearly. I know that there was always copious amounts of food, where I grew up I'm sure that someone would have said that it looked like a “thresher's dinner.” I'm sure that it did, my family for the most part was usually in farm country. I know that the meals have always been eaten in harmony.

The Bryant's still get together, at least the ones who live close enough. The general pace of life in our day and age has taken its toll on the gathering of extended family just as it has on everything else. But memories are gifts that aren't easily taken back. They can be stolen, usually age is the culprit, and yet there are times when age is the, “blesser” of memory. Things spark them and we are suddenly taken back to a certain time or place where we either revel or mourn or simply recall. Sometimes sweetened iced tea takes me back to my grandma's kitchen on, “tea day.”.

My maternal grandmother's family gathered this weekend in Brown County, Indiana. The Walkers. I said to my mother on the way home from the dinner and visit that I found it amusing to compare families. My father's people, German and Irish are storytellers, they laugh, they nudge one another and hug and celebrate with good food. It seems to me that the heritage of the Germans and Irish must have been constantly centered around food, well seasoned and joyously prepared. (The artist Gauguin, a French painter from the Post impressionist period said, “No mean woman can cook well, it takes a light heart and generous spirit.)

The Walkers are English and I noticed that they don't laugh as much and they are quieter. There were times when I expected someone to burst into tea, but we left before the appropriate hour for the English custom. My grandfather's people were Welsh and there are very few of them, too few to gather really, that event could be held at a 8 top table at Denny's..

I don't have the memories from the Walker Reunions that I do of the Bryant's and we attended one in June of 1964, the same year as the Bryant one that I have such vivid memories of. There is little told of the ancestors on the Walker side and yet there is a family historian. I think she would tell all if it were a small gathering, but in the larger one she asks a few questions as discussion starters. The families are just different and it is from the blending of our backgrounds that give us the material for the hearty blend that we are.

A customer in the shop one time looked at me with a rather puzzled look and said to me, “What is your European Heritage?” Frankly, I have never been asked that before, at least not in the way that he asked. I smiled and said, “I'm German, Irish and Welsh.” He shook his head and said, “and what does that make you?” I didn't have to think long before I said, “A mean drunk who knows how to dig coal.”

I'm glad that I have the best of all the family coursing through my veins, and frankly, I'm glad that I have their bad habits and all that makes them who they are, obviously, it makes me who I am too.

With that in mind, God Save my Nieces and Nephews.

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