Saturday, May 6, 2017

Saturday Stories 05-06-17


Now that Diane is in her seventies it would seem there would be lots of relatives, young and old.  But she is more of an orphan now than ever.  Her sister has chosen to not have a relationship and Diane has finally accepted that and doesn’t make an effort to keep in touch.  Although she does send a birthday card in November as she has for sixty years and always wonders if Marie even opens them.  Oh, well, we must accept what we cannot change.

As a child there were always aunts and uncles and cousins, but all are gone now, except some of the cousins who live in far flung places.  Those relatives all seemed to have old fashioned names.  There were two Aunt Effies, a grandmother Ella, Uncle Homer, Uncle Del, Uncle Lionel, Aunt Marian, Aunt Dee, Uncle Gordon, Aunt Chris, and Diane’s mother’s sisters, Dorothy and Cornelia.  They were almost all country people, who lived on farms, tilling the soil and raising livestock – cows, chickens, ducks, rabbits, even a horse or two.  Diane lived in the suburbs so it was special to go out to visit the relatives on farms.  Everyone told family stories, mostly funny, and shared news of family members.  Some summers there would be family reunions, usually at a park with a lake to provide swimming for all the kids.  The water was so cold and dark, Diane was always afraid to go in very deep.  The dads would put a few watermelons in fishing nets and immerse them in the cold water and there was always a great jar with a spigot, full of lemonade, and a washtub with bottles of beer in ice.   Everyone contributed their very favorite picnic food and eating seemed to go on all day.  One year one of the uncles brought fireworks from out-of-state and lit them over the water when the sun went down. It was very exciting because fireworks were a very rare sight except for the 4th of July.  

Such nice memories.  Diane wishes she could just tell all of those people in the past how much she cherishes those family memories and how much she misses all of them.  

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