Adventures in Vacationing (Part1): The Family Reunion

Jul 22, 2017
8 min read

Since early in our marriage my husband and I make a point to get to his hometown for July 4th. We leave the grind of life in Baltimore and go to a town where they drive tractors on the main streets... Literally! I have often told to my husband (as he is honking at the old man trying to get his hay bale across town) that the city has ruined his ability to be a patient diver. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his temperature rising and his breathing becoming more and more labored until he explodes with "THEY ARE KILLING ME! THERE'S NO ONE IN FRONT OF HIM!" and my favorite, "SURE LADY! TAKE ALLLLL DAY! WE HAVE NOWHERE TO GO!" Inevitably he roars the engine and passes a local who is looking at us like we have just landed from another planet.

So for the last few years my husband and his brothers (Tino and Gee Gee) have gotten fireworks and had a cookout at Ms. Nett's (their mom) house. It grew and grew until this year Tino took on the challenge of organizing an OFFICIAL family reunion. Now let me tell you there is nothing like a family reunion! At a black family reunion you can always count on these things:

1. FOOD! Thank you so much Cassandra "Snook" Mcclary for all the amazing food! They had everything from corn-on-the-cob to pulled pork. Snook and Tino have a perfect system. He grills the meat and she makes ALLLL the sides. At any family reunion you CAN NOT leave it up to a pot luck to feed everyone. Why? Because that cousin who CAN NOT COOK will sign up to bring something that no one is going to eat. Then there's Aunt Suzy who don't use salt in her food because of her diabetes so her collard greens taste like boiled paper bags. The crazy thing is Aunt Suzy KNOWS her collards are gonna be nasty... you can tell because she gives everyone that same excuse when she's putting it on the plate " Now you know baby Auntie don't use no salt because of her diabetes, but I used some really good herbs."" HERBS??!!! If you didn't think you would get the taste slapped out your mouth you'd tell her something about her HERBS... Auntie now you knew you was cooking for everyone... why didn't you put salt in OUR collards and put your HERB concoction to the side! Then you have the cousin that can THROW DOWN (that means cook really good), but has a DIRRRRRTTTTYYYYY kitchen. You know the one that while you are eating their food you're trying not to think about the kitchen it came out of? Then there's the one that just flat out CAN NOT cook and has the nerve to show up with 25 dry chicken wings from the takeout spot up the street to help feed 150 people. Every family has one of those too. So thank you Snook and Tino for cooking the food.

2. OVER EATERS! Now everyone has that family member who gets the eye roll whenever they come to a family event. Why you ask? These family members come to the food line on a mission to eat as much food as possible. They might even complain about how the food taste. What is so irritating about them is that they are probably the same ones who complained about how the family reunion fees were too expensive and had someone help put something on the $50. They are also usually the first ones in line for the food AND the first ones to go back for seconds! They might knock over Aunt Suzy for two pieces of the cake, and then talk about how dry the cake was. And lets not forget the 6 sodas that they drank... because why would they drink any of the water bottles at a family reunion.

3. PLATE TO-GO PACKERS! Now followed right behind the overeaters are people that I call the "plate TO-GO packers". They are the ones who are always asking if you got some foil. You might be related to a rare breed who was born with EXTRA nerve that bring their own foil or food containers. The desperate ones will just put one plate on top of another and wrap them tight in a grocery bag (don't act like you haven't). They have mastered the art of plate pacing. They know how to get all the food on one plate... they don't care if its touching... they will even pile two types of meat on top of one another. They don't care that their corn bread is sitting in the pork n' beans and will be soggy. All they care about is getting the food home.. they'll deal with the condition of the food on their own time. These family members always want to take food home which in and of itself is not a big deal. In fact the host never wants to take a lot of food home to fill up their refrigerators with 50 grilled chicken legs, a long tray of hamburgers, and 3 bowels of potato salad. The irritating part is that they are trying to pack a plate TO-GO 10 minutes after the food starts being served.Shoot they might actually pack up their first plate... take it to the car... then actually eat their second plate....smh I can't make this up...

Then a few of us might actually know someone that fits both the "over eater" and "Plate to-go Packer" category in which case you should borrow some of the nerve they was born with to tell them they can't have NOTHING to pack till the END of the family reunion. Be prepared because they WILL have an attitude, but I bet you they will wait until the end of the reunion to get the food or leave early. In most cases this will work.

4. Games and music! Now whether it is a game of football for the older cousins to bond with; a game of spades for the elders of the family, or a crazy game of dominoes for "uncle Leroy and 'em" no family reunion could be complete without the games. This year Tino and Snook out did themselves with the bouncers, water slide and raffle to keep everyone engaged. I have found that this is probably the quickest way for family to reconnect. Getting hot, sweaty, and thirsty with a contact sport, or cutting an A's with a 3 of Spades! The trash talking soon starts and you feel like you have been living around the corner for years and never missed a day together. And everyone knows that a family reunion is not complete without the music. Now in order for the music to be affective it must 1) Span across at least 4 decades in order to have music triggers everyone's fondest memories. In this case the DJ needed to be talented enough to go back and forth between the temptations/Marvin Gaye/ Michael Jackson/ and the "cha-cha slide"... quite a feat. 2) It should also be the "clean" version of the music. There's nothing worse than watching parents of small children wince every time a curse word is blasted across the loud speaker. lol.

5. BUGS! Now everyone knows that when you are having a family reunion in July in the South that there are gonna be BUUUUGGGGSSSSS. I'm not talking about the little mosquitos that we deal with in Baltimore. Naw man I'm talking about NATS. These things are 10 times more annoying then mosquitos. They don't bite like mosquitoes, but you would rather deal with the biting then the nats flying around your face while you are trying to talk. They're goal is to see which one can fly into your eyes or up your nose without getting hit. Now because you know your mom and dad raised you with that good home training you try to discreetly blow the nat away while you listen to the person talking to you about some thing really important. When that fails to work you swat at them as if you really expect to kill one and if you do manage to knock one down somewhere in your mind you fantasize that it will serve as a warning to the others to stay AWAY. And try as you might to hold a good conversation with a cousin you haven't seen in a while you both are swatting, blowing, and dodging nats left and right and are so miserable all you really want to do is go inside. Then finally the moment comes when you realize that neither one of you care actually talking. Rather you are standing together swatting flies.... So you go inside for another soda.

6. People who aren't family but love to eat! - Ok so everyone knows that people bring others with them to the family reunion. It can be friends who have become as close to them as family and potential spouses (I got a family reunion shirt my first year of dating my husband). Every once in a family reunion year you might have Ms. Such-n-such from up the street see the fireworks and decide to come down a get herself a plate.... shoot she might even have gotten an invite from one of the family members who will never fess up to have invited her. But one thing that I have learned from my husband's family is that WE ALLLLL family!

So this was the first several days of our 2017 vacation. We got to spend quality time catching up with family and the boys got to meet some new cousins. Honestly though around day 2 of this great time I started feeling homesick for my own family. Because my husband's family is only a drive away we are able to see them more. I am from Missouri and with plane tickets being so high it can be both challenging and frustrating to buy plane tickets for all of us to go. And 20 hours with an 18month old in the car just ain't happening... All you mama's know what I'm talking about. But I pray for my family. I pray for my Aunt Nia and remember her unwavering faith in her people. I pray for my Aunt Danese who always laughed when my and Uncle Duck would reenact scenes from my favorite movie "The Color Purple". I pray for my Aunt Hope who never cared if my dad was in a bad mood she would always come over and call him an "OLD GOAT!" I pray for my Aunt Francine who always told me that I "had a light in me". I pray for POP Lionel, Aunt Netty, Aunt Renee, Aunt Toni, Uncle Richard... people who have loved me my whole life without restraint, and have asked for so little in return. I pray for my little brothers who are growing up fast and who I would love to get know beyond the pictures I see on Facebook... I pray for my cousins... we made so many plans as kids.... now at times I feel like we are strangers. My kids are growing up and have a whole network of people who could enrich their lives. I feel like I am robbing them of the opportunity of a lifetime... and every year the window is getting smaller. With all the Facebook / snapchat / twitter / Instagram and other social networking sights there's still nothing like putting your eyes on the people you love and who love you... I have to go home soon.