The whole of it is that family reunions are supposed to be exactly that, family getting together to spend time away from the rest of the world and settle comfortably into each other’s lives for a few moments in time. Those few moments are treasured, brought out now and then to hold once again to bask in the sharing, that feeling of complete unity, that part of our history that makes life just feel damn good.
It didn’t exactly work out that way even though it should have.

All of my sons have not made it to any family reunion – all at once. They’ve shown at different times but never all of them together. This year’s was supposed to be a different mix. It started out that way.

It didn’t end that way. My little, immediate family group fell apart shortly after it started. We were watching ‘What the Bleep is going on?’ and one of my boys couldn’t understand a bit of skepticism from another one. I made the mistake of saying it was a fascinating movie. It just got worse from there. My little believer had a screaming fit, telling us we were idiots because it was scientific fact and it was presented right there in front of us. He left in a huff. He came back later. Things seemed to be OK. But within a day we had another go around. My little believer really left in a huff. He showed us. He stayed in town at a relative of his deceased father for the last two days of our reunion – the time that everyone looks forward to because the rest of the family comes in on the weekend and has time off from work, etc.

I confess to having my feelings hurt a bit. His 20 year old daughter, that he claims to want to reacquaint with after ignoring her for the last eight years, was with us and add mom (me), his two brothers, and aunts and uncles, cousins, etc., and he spent those two days proving to us that we had pissed him off because we didn’t agree with him. Gee.

How can things become so convoluted and ugly that people can’t just step out of the arena and allow the opponent to have a POV? When you have the answer, please email me with it. I’m still struggling.

But that aside, I had a great time. I spent two weeks waking up very early, hiking in the woods, eating way too much food because that’s all my family does – eat a meal, get ready for another – and Riot spent some nights up at the coach with me while we watched movies and he snacked after all the dirt that he threw into the air was washed out of his mohawk. And he’d said, “Bye, bye, fishies,” for the night. Sweet boy!
I learned the true meaning of signs on the highway that read, “BUMP”. The first one didn’t have a sign. The pavement just disappeared when it connected to a bridge that was under construction and at 55 MPH, it was a rip your face off and throw it in the bed of the truck bump. And to top it off, the back of the coach which is about 50 feet from where I was, is where the kitchen is…

I have Mikasa stoneware that I’ve used for the last 20 or so years. I’ve lost a few pieces over the years due to kid breakage but was able to replace them at a site on the internet, Replacements unlimited – I think that’s the name of it – and when we stopped down the road for the night, there were broken pieces of cups on the floor, in the sink, and other places. The cabinet doors were open. The cups bounced out because the plates hit the doors when the bottom fell out of the coach on the bump. Amazingly, the plates, saucers, and bowls just sat there in the cabinet like good little kids. I had glass canisters setting on the cabinets with that rubberish, webbed shelf liner underneath them, and it was in between each plate, saucer, bowl, etc. and everything in the cabinets sets on it. Nothing moves. If the weight of the plates sliding up against the doors hadn’t happened, I might not have had one broken item. I lost four cups and the creamer. Everything else is intact and all the glass canisters on the counter tops never moved. Well…the stoneware is in boxes now, being saved for one of my granddaughters and I have a four place setting of correl instead of an eight place setting of stoneware in my cabinets.

I had several experiences with truck drivers that left me shivering. I think they were trying to kill me. They failed. I’ve had two trips out of the state with the coach, over 5,000 miles which is really nothing, and I’ve decided that I’m going to run into a lot of events that will leave me shaking my head as I travel down the highways and byways. After this trip, I do understand why people in my RV park looked at me with bewilderment and asked, “You’re taking your home?” when I told them I would be leaving for about two weeks. Kee-rist! Why own one if you don’t plan on taking it? I’m starting to see the light. But I’m not done – there’s a lot more out there to see and do…tons more BUMPS in the road.

It’s funny, I stopped in Missoula, on the way up and on the way back, to sleep for a few hours but I didn’t even go downtown or look for a poker game. I simply had no desire to try to look up the past. There was a tremendous grass fire in progress as we were moving towards town, coming down into the valley. When we went across the street, from where we parked the coach, to a restaurant for dinner, the bus boy told us that three houses had burned up in that fire – and of course it was still out of control. The smoke in the air was almost unbearable and I was happy when we headed out hours later and moved south towards Butte.

There were other bumps in the journey but the worst one was the situation with my little believer. I hope he doesn’t ignore me for the next eight years or so, but it’s not looking good. He’s not staying in touch.