When the pandemic passes, I’m planning a family reunion. Regina and I spend a lot of time with kids, grandchildren and other close kin, but we never have full-fledged family reunions.
There has been plenty of time to think about the past lately, and my mind has drifted to the big family get-togethers of my youth.
The reunions were not held very often, but relatives came out of the woodwork when they were. They were always entertaining, and the food was good.
My mother and dad came from big families, and we saw their parents, brothers, sisters and kids on summer trips, Christmas holidays and things like that.
But every few years, members of the McLemore tribe or the Pierce clan from which my parents emerged would plan a huge family reunion.
On those occasions, eccentric aunts, weird uncles and crazy cousins that we didn’t see any time except at family reunions showed up and told stories about other strange relatives.
Nobody had a house big enough to hold all those folks, so the reunions were held at parks, church grounds, country clubs and places like that.
There was an aunt from Jackson, Mississippi, who always had her bird with her. It was green and in a gold-colored cage.
She would ask the bird to speak for us kids, and it made some squawking sounds. My aunt told us what it said.
A pretty cousin with pigtails who was a couple of years older than we were would jump from behind trees and bushes and try to kiss older boys on the lips. They fought her off at first but then seemed to start looking forward to the surprises.
One of our cousins who wore overalls and had a home haircut would go to the bathroom in the woods. He said he didn’t use the bathroom indoors at home and didn’t plan to do it at family reunions.
People should not be labeled as religious fanatics, but my paternal grandfather ran his church with an iron fist and direct orders from God.
When my brother and I played “go fishing” at his house, he tore up the deck of cards. John Wayne ordered a whiskey while we were watching a black and white movie on TV, and he unplugged the set. He was a religious fanatic.
At one of our reunions, a relative showed up in a Pearl Beer truck and handed out bottle openers with “Pearl” printed on them. They helped my grandad to a chair in the shade and fanned him.
The beer truck driver was at the wrong reunion. He would have been welcome at reunions on my mother’s side. Men at those events left every couple of hours to “make a beer run.” Schlitz and Pabst were iced down in washtubs.
When we gathered at a country club one year, a cousin taught me to play golf. We borrowed clubs from his dad, who was left-handed. That messed my golf up for life.
I got to know that cousin better and spent a couple of weeks with him one summer. He was on a recreation department baseball team and wanted me to play while I was visiting. I played a lot of sandlot ball but never on a real team.
When the coach asked what team I played for back home, my cousin spontaneously made up the name Dirtdiggers. The skeptical coach said, “Dirtdigger, go to centerfield.” If there had been a position further away, he would have sent me there.
I remember that kinfolks on both sides of the family lived modestly, but they were generous. An uncle from Arkansas passed out jars of honey from his beehives. An aunt gave relatives shoeboxes of pecans she picked up in her yard.
Men gathered around a nice looking fellow who had married into the family to hear his stories of serving on a submarine in the war. An elderly man who was some kind of kin always brought his whetrock and sharpened men’s pocketknives.
Regina is not as enthusiastic as I am about organizing a family reunion. Maybe it’s because there was no Pearl Beer truck driver on her side of the family.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES