FAMILY REUNION TIME There is decided difference in attitude when you realize you are going to be one of the oldest - if not the oldest member of the family to be present. Much depends on which of the oldsters actually get there.
My family - centered more or less, at that time, in Eastern Virginia and North Carolina seemed to have a summer-time "Go Home Week" so each summer time after school was out most of us showed up at 728 East 26th Street, Norfolk, Va. Often those who could not make the summer trip planned to be there around Christmas time. ,I think that, actually we got together more often than a great many families ever did but without an formal "reunion theme. We had one of that type ,however, much more recently at Staunton, Virginia - in Gypsy Hill Park - when McCaskey family members turned up from everywhere. That was the last big one we had and since that time Father Time, Mother Nature, Arthur Ritus, and a lot of other forces have moved in on us - which, I think we all understand well enough is more or less par for life's course.
Some reunions tend to endure longer than others. So much depends on older members keeping the young people interested in who they have been, who they are are, who
they may be!
This is a reunion of the Herman family - my wife's mother's kin. It is, in a very real sense also a reunion of of the Arndt family as well, because many of the Hermans married Arndts or close kin thereof. The focus of the two families has long been the piedmont area of North Carolina. We are part of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia branch of the families and we will be meeting with those from the Hickory-Newton-Conover area - where we will gather this week-end. You can bet there will be food aplenty for the throng, too. That's a major feature and among of my prime memories of such events caloric capabilities of cooks is a prime point.
There's a serious side to such sessions...always and in as many different ways as there are people present. You can sense the binding thread of love which make it all possible. In one sense you can say we are honoring family members of the past for their accomplishments. That's true. We do that by our very presence. We always reflect, as well, on what these moments together might mean to our lives and to the future well-being of our children and grandchildren.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-23-06 [c445wds]
