Family Reunion!

I'm holding a letter written by my great-great-grandfather!

How cool is that? Where did I get it, you ask? Well let me tell you:

Our family does reunions.

I don't mean one day every ten years or whatever other families who do reunions do. I mean almost every summer of my life my dad and his brothers and sister all get together with all of their kids and grandkids (and now GREAT grandkids) and CAMP for a few days.

Everybody comes to whatever campsite we found in Utah or California or Colorado or wherever we found and sets up in their tents and campers and RVs. We camp by family, like the tribes of Israel in the desert. We even sometimes have commemorative T-shirts made, or have everybody bring a family flag for their area. It's getting to be quite a project to find campsites big enough for all 140+ of us, so now we only go every 2 years.

Wasn't even kidding about 160+. This was last year, each "tribe" in a different color, and there are still about 30 of us that didn't make it that year.

We go hiking, and have craft projects. We build forts, or have whittling contests. We play cards and visit and explore and work together to set up and watch the kids and feed everybody. We always play horseshoes in a big camp-wide tournament. We always have a campfire program at least one of the evenings with a talent show and skits and storytelling, and most other nights we just sit around and talk and sing songs while my dad plays his guitar and try to keep the marshmallow-roasting kids from falling into the fire. 

Lately, reunions have been themed around our heritage.

One year we had a "scout" theme, as our family has been very active in scouting for generations. Another year one of the uncles had a life-size cardboard standup made from his parents' wedding photo, so we could all take pictures with them, dressed up in some of the hats and other clothes they'd worn. 

Uncle D is the oldest, so he's the current patriarch of the family. He'd been trying to find homes for some of the last things from the old house before it got sold, so he'd bring things to reunions for people to take home -- clothing, books, knick-knacks, and the like. 

Uncle D offered me a project.

One reunion about ten years ago he came with a large box full of old family letters, and gave me the assignment of scanning and cataloging them all so they could be preserved and eventually transcribed. I gladly accepted!

Now I spend a lot of my free time scanning and reading a bit from these old letters. The earliest I've found so far is from 1924, with a 2-cent stamp! But this letter is from the farthest-back relative so far. I mean, I have a letter from my grandma's grandpa!

I can't even describe how it makes me feel to touch these and hold them and read them. This connection I get to have (and someday share with the rest of the family) with these relations I've never met in life feels so sacred and humbling. To read my grandparents' letters to each other from when they were only courting. To read my grandma's words, describing to her mother her feelings for this man she'd found to marry:

"You know it seems funny when this LOVE that you hear about all your life, read of and sing of finally happens to oneself. It doesn't seem like things you dream of and imagine all your life can realy[sic] happen and seem so sacred."

To read her descriptions of her young children, so accurate to who they grew up to be (Uncle R being tidy and helpful, Aunt S dressing up and performing in the kitchen, Uncle B terrorizing the house and making a mess and he can't even walk yet!).  To read her letter to her mother -- seven months before my father's birth -- describing symptoms and wondering if she might be pregnant again.

To read crooked little letters from my uncles when they were only boys to their grandpa, talking about what they will buy with the money they got from selling rabbits they bred.

I have this paper window into the past, and it's amazing!

I'm so looking forward to the part of the project where I will be transcribing all these letters instead of only getting snippets as I go, where I can read the whole story. 

Although I know it's not the WHOLE story, of course. Only the piece of it that came before me. It started long long ago, and will continue on forever, and it's such a precious thing to be able to study the few links that came just before mine.

-Goosey

Road Trip! : Stories of Summer

Is there anything better than a summer road trip?

Bright sunshine all the way to the horizon, the hum of the car engine or the roar of the wind through open windows, jerky and sunflower seeds and cheese on crackers, books and naps and music and finally getting to stretch your legs at that rest stop in the middle of nowhere.

I'm feeling nostalgic, so I'm gonna tell you some stories about road trips I've been on, mostly from when I was a kid, in no particular order:

Cheez Whiz, Mom!

On our road trips, the Mom is usually in the front passenger seat. Her job is to keep Dad awake, read to us, and to pass back snacks. A favorite was ritz crackers with a squirt of aerosol can cheese food product. She'd squirt a cracker, pass it back, and we'd all take turns with the flaky salty gooey treat.

One drive we were in the middle of this process, and as mom was passing back a cracker, the car hit a dip or a bump, and she lost her grip before we could grab it. We looked all around the floor and the seats, wondering where it had gone -- until someone found it cheese-glued to the ceiling of the car!

He Thinks He's a Wit

In the days before cars were made to have air vents for every seat, Dad would crank up the AC during long drives through the Nevada desert. One time he checked with us, asking, "You guys cool back there yet?"

Boy-O comes back with, "Nope, we're still nerds!"

Speaking of AC...

We didn't always have it. Once upon a time we had a dinky gold Datsun 4-seater. There were five of us. Dad installed a seat belt in the middle, and mom rolled up some blankets to fill the gap, and that's where I got to sit.

Driving from Los Angeles to Utah Valley through the deserts of the American West, with no air conditioning, no foot room (my feet were up on our boom box we used to play our road music on cassette tape), and no actual seat. Baby Puddin's car seat had a frame of hot metal bars. That was on my left. On my right was a sweaty-head little Boy-O, sleeping on me. 

And when we stopped for gas I had to walk to the restroom barefoot through the snow uphill both ways.

We Are Not Amused!

Around this time, but on a different trip because Baby Puddin' was in the middle, we'd stopped at McDonald's for food. Boy-O and I were entertaining ourselves by trying to make Puddin' a hat out of our empty french-fry bags. Mom's response was, "We are not amused with french fry grease in our hair!"

I don't think to this day I could explain WHY we thought that was so funny, but I'm pretty sure we laughed about it for days. Kids.

BTW, Snacks Are For Mouths

The Mom tells a story of driving through Nowhere, Arizona when I was four and Boy-O was only two. She'd handed us back those hard nature valley granola bars to snack on. A bit later, she heard a funny snorting sound in the back seat, and looked back to see the boy shoving bits of granola up his nose! 

They drove to the nearest populated area which was Winslow, and the doctor was at lunch so they had to wait. The doctor used long tweezers and pulled out something like two inches of snotty granola. Mom couldn't believe how much he'd crammed up there.

Much Later On...

Puddin' was married and she and Bear were living just south of Phoenix. Boy-O and I were still in Utah, so we'd drive down the 10 or so hours for holidays. The first time we did this was in our shared Chevy Lumina, which Boy-O had named "Clueless Morgan" because, as he said, "it didn't know how to be a car." 

On our way back north we took an alternate route through Sedona, Arizona (which is BEAUTIFUL), but the way out was up a very steep set of switchbacks up the mountain. As we went up, we started hearing this really weird rattling noise coming from the engine. There was nowhere to turn off, so we just struggled up and said we'd park at the top and look under the hood. When we parked the car and turned off the engine, the strange rapid-tapping noise continued. What was going on? We popped the hood to see what was going on, and there was the coolant in the coolant tank AND IT WAS BOILING.

My car had overheated to the point where the coolant was boiling. I didn't even know that was a thing that could happen. We hung out at the shady rest stop lookout area until it settled back down and CAREFULLY made our way back home. 

Clueless Morgan didn't last the next year.

Much, Much Earlier...

Dad is the youngest of six children, 5 boys and a girl. They, too, would take road trips through the desert. Back before the I-15 was built, you'd have to drive down the Las Vegas Strip itself to get through town. It was a phenomenal experience, especially at night, and suddenly you're not sleepy anymore and after miles and miles of hot boring desert, here is this cool, dazzling, sparkly wonderland of lights and color and shiny things! 

Dad likes to tell a story of how he and his siblings were pestering their parents to PLEASE stop and let us go try a slot machine c'mon dad it's only a nickel yeah maybe we can win something, just once please please please.

Their dad got fed up saying no and thought he'd teach his kids a lesson. He thought he'd stop, drop a nickel, and show them how you're more likely to lose money gambling than not, and then they'd be on their way again. 

So he stops, drops a nickel, pulls the lever, and DINGDINGDING a little pile of nickels falls out! This was not in the plan! He had to think fast ...

He gathered up the little pile of nickels, puts them in his pocket, and says, "Let that be a lesson to you, kids. Always quit while you're ahead."

Our Favorite Road Trip Games!

When you're all crammed in a car together, and you've run out of conversation, and you are tired of music, and mom's tired of reading, but you still need to entertain yourselves: it's time for games! There are lots of games you can play where you primarily use your eyes and voice. I think when we were very small we might have done "I Spy" a few times, but as we grew our games got a little more complicated and sophisticated. (Please remember I said "a little")

Zip:

Everybody watches the road, and the first person to see a green mile-marker sign and says "Zip!" gets a point. 

I Spy Alphabet:

Everybody tries to find the entire alphabet, in order, from any sign or license plate they can see.

I Challenge:

Everybody in the car takes turns adding a letter to the chain without actually spelling a word over 4 letters. Dad starts with T, say. Mom could add R, Boy-O adds A -- if it's my turn, I can't add P or Y, because that would spell a word, I go for D. 

The trick is, you have to be thinking of a word it COULD be spelling, so if Puddin' thinks there aren't any real words that start with TRAD she will say "I Challenge" and then I would tell her "I was going for TRADITION". 

If you lose a challenge, or finish a word, you get a point (points are bad in this game). Tricky game, but a nice mental exercise for us family of word nerds.

A My Name Is:

Family favorite, and can be played with even fairly young children, as long as they are old enough to read. Everyone takes a turn with the next letter of the alphabet, and tries to complete their turn with their letter in this manner:

A my name is Alice,

my husband's name is Alistair.

We live in Alaska,

where I am an Archeologist

and I like to eat Artichokes.

Woodle:

One person chooses a verb, and then the others in the car take turns asking yes-or-no questions about the verb, using the word "woodle" in place of the verb. For instance:

Do people woodle in their sleep?

Can dogs woodle?

Do you need special equipment to woodle?

The person who chose the verb answers as best they can until someone guesses the verb correctly, and then it's their turn to choose the next verb.

Have a Wonderful Summer!!

Get your car checked, pack up some great snacks and music, and enjoy the journey!