Reunion Redux

On April 18th I wrote a post on our family's tradition of holding a large reunion each summer, usually in August, when my mother's clan would encamp en masse for a day of gastronomical debauchery (and a bit of reminiscing in between biting, chewing and swallowing large quantities of fried food). My favorite part of a reunion was probably the obligatory trek to one of the family cemeteries. This would usually involve either a) a drive down a dirt road, muddy or dusty depending on recent weather; b) a hike through the woods; c) a walk through tobacco fields; or d) all of the above. (I suspect that the remoteness of these burial plots corresponds directly to the location of ancient family homesteads . . . and, in fact, some of the headstones date to the 18th century.)

Here's a photo from my first reunion, August 1964. I'm about eight months old in this photo. My grandfather would have been 57, my mother 29, and my great-grandmother 82. My father, of course, was holding the camera. (Isn't that the fate of so many fathers? I'm never in any photos with my kids because I'm snapping the picture.)