The Family Reunion: A Fictional Family Portrait of Not-So-Real Family Members

by Richard Grove

  Copyright ? 2010 Book - Richard M. Grove

  All rights for story revert to the author. All rights for book, layout and design remain with Hidden Brook Press. No part of this book may be reproduced except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise stored in a retrieval system without prior written consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

  The Family Reunion

  by Richard M. Grove

  Layout and Design - Richard M. Grove

  Cover Design - Richard M. Grove

  Cover Photograph - Richard M. Grove

  Editor - Kimberley E. Grove

  Ebook ISBN - 978-1-897475-87-4

  Hidden Brook Press

  www.HiddenBrookPress.com

  writers@HiddenBrookPress.com

  Third Edition

  The Family Reunion

  A Fictional Family Portrait

  of Not-So-Real

  Family Members

  by Richard M. Grove

  Hidden Brook Press

  www.HiddenBrookPress.com

  writers@HiddenBrookPress.com

  Tree Book ISBN - 978-1-894553-90-2

  This book is dedicated to:

  The Grove,

  Sherman

  and Hunt Family.

  Find yourself in one or more of these characters.

  I have hidden you in characters

  you might not,

  at first, think to look.

  You are all there.

  Thank you Bill Hunt for your attentive red ink.

  Thank you R.D. Roy / Doogla, mi hermano,

  for your editorial guidance

  and Jennifer Footman for your input.

  Most of all, thank you, Kim,

  my darling wife,

  for your loving patience and support

  of my creative spirit

  and for all of the practical assistance you give me.

  Dear Reader:

  I am proud that this book has had a number of printings and is now in its third edition as a tree book and now also as an ebook with some corrections, some character developments and even a brand new character. I wonder if I will ever finish this book.

  This book is primarily a collection of vignettes, character sketches, that are strung together in and around a family reunion. Find yourself in each of these characters not in just one. I have purpose-fully used many names from my family and friends but in no way should a single character be thought of as a portrayal of reality let alone a single individual. Stories and personal characteristics that I see in myself and in others are simply the launching platform for these characters buried between truth and fiction.

  Most often a character in the story is not even remotely like a person in real life but sometimes a person has simply been renamed. In most situations my own personal experiences and traits are sprinkled throughout all of the characters, including the dead chicken and the hooker. I wonder what Sigmund Freud would say about the inevitability of this.

  Richard M. Grove / Tai

  Chapters:

  1 - Welcome

  2 - Honey

  3 - Ma and Pa

  4 - Little Brother Chris

  5 - Sister Kimberley

  6 - Sisters Charlotte and Sarah

  7 - Sister Mary

  8 - Little Grams

  9 - Big Grams

  10 - Nans, Granny and Mumzy

  11 - Uncle Bill

  12 - Uncle Al

  13 - Aunt Allison

  14 - Auntie Pat

  15 - Uncle Eric

  16 - Uncle Girwood

  17 - Cousin Bill and Cousin Bill

  18 - Mark the Mulch Man

  19 - Uncle Fred

  20 - Uncle Eugene

  21 - Epilogue - The Drive Home

  Biographical sketch of the author

  The Family Reunion

  Welcome to my family. Mostly we are a close-knit bunch, all living within five miles of each other. We get together at each other's places for dinners, to help paint each other's houses or build a shed. Sometimes we bring in the crops together or just sit on the front porch on a hot summer evening complaining about the price of gas or seed for next year's crops. Like everyone we complain about how many trucks there are on the highways or how the kids just aren't very polite these days. Mostly we try to stay away from topics like politics and religion. Ma says, "There's no point in getting the blood to boilin'." We were taught that family doesn't quarrel over differences. Mind you, there would be plenty of room for scrapping if we got started. Ma and Pa have been voting Progressive Conservative all of their lives. All us kids were weaned on Conservative rallies from before we could even walk. I still vote conservative but some of the black sheep of the family swung over to the Liberal party some time ago. Ma's motto is that we leave politics at the front door with the muddy boots.

  Despite how often we get together the one thing that we always do is gather at least once a year for a family reunion. Some years, if someone gets us organized in the summer, the family reunion is out at my cousins, David and Marilyn's, cottages near Turkey Point on Lake Erie. It is a long drive through tobacco country 'before you get to a single, slow lane that winds you past clusters of modest, but well kept, cottages until you arrive under ancient maples to park on the grass in front of a large, low slung deck. There has been many a family reunion out there.

  Some years we get together at Ma and Pa's farm. They live in a mid-1800 stone house on 100 acres of rolling hills near Puslinch out a ways between Hamilton and Kitchener. When arriving there you would slow for the turn off the dusty gravel road, drive between two monolithic stone pillars, up the long sumach lined lane and arrive at their grand grey stone house. Their house looks over golden pastures and orchards for many a mile. The view is stupendous all year long. From season to season you are met with the glory God gave us.

  Even if someone gets us organized in the summer we still rent a country hall near Ancaster in the winter about Christmas time. This old one-room-school-come-community-hall echoes a hundred years of country tradition that takes me back to my childhood. It has a big old kitchen for getting the food ready and a plentiful sized hall for setting up tables and letting the kids run.

  Christmas in the old schoolhouse is fine and all, but me, I was bucking for a new tradition. I wanted to have a Christmas family reunion somewhere exotic like Cuba one year. As soon as I made the suggestion someone said lets go to Las Vegas instead, another said Florida. Someone said they couldn't get that much time off work and another said "Who is gunna milk my dang cows if I'm tannin' on some beach?" I guess I just have to come to terms with the notion that I'm not going to get my country-rooted family much past the bend in the highway let alone off the continent. I figure they are a home-bound bunch for the most part and nothing much is going to change that. They don't want to venture out much past the front gate if they can avoid it. A trip to the post office and the grocery store once a week is all that most of them ever do day after day, year after year.

  Probably, most of them have never traveled past Niagara Falls or had a tan on their legs or much down past their red necks since they were ten. With horror, my imagination pictures the bunch of them walking up to the front desk of a fancy Cuban hotel still wearing their galoshes and their green John Deer caps. "Do you-o have-o our reservations for-o our family-o of thirty-two, sinyor-o." Maybe it is best if we just have
Christmas in Ancaster every year. I might not recognize Ma and Pa with sand between their toes anyway.

  Pretty much everyone comes to our family reunions near every year. Ma and Pa haven't ever missed one. I missed going once when I had a summer job flipping burgers and makin' greasy fries at the chip wagon in Cayuga. Another time, I was on my way with a watermelon under my arm but I got talking to Janny, a pretty girl from Ancaster. She had long blond hair that flowed down her back like angel wings. I sat rocking back and forth on that watermelon talking and talking with her until it finally burst right from under me. We both pretty near peed ourselves laughing; tears streamed down our faces for the longest time. I plum forgot all about the family reunion until it was too late to go. I sometimes figure I should have asked her to marry me except I figured she was way too pretty for me. She was pretty and all and we dated for some time but I sure am glad that I didn't ask her to marry me. It would be just my luck if she broke it off two weeks before the wedding. Somehow she just didn't fit like she was family. She never would have been happy with who I turned out to be. She wanted a white picket fence and I am not sure that would have fit for me.

  Honey

  Two marriages later and a lot of bumping from pillar to post I finally married my Honey. She's patient, smart and pretty. What more could I ask for? She grew up in a religious family. Ma liked that about her right off. She's as practical as Ma and loves popping into the Dollar Store to buy some kid or another a present. Honey is the reason that I live in the city. She loves the country but hates farming. She tolerates me having a pet rabbit but puts her foot down about a cat or a dog. She never grew up with any pets and isn't about to start now. "Feeding chickens and milkin' cows is honest noble work" she says, "but I'm getting my eggs and milk from A&P, thank you very much."

  One thing that Honey loves is making apple crisp. She has never made it the same way twice but she always makes plenty to give away. She always takes apple crisp to the family reunion and there is never a speck left.

  * * *

  At our family reunions we mostly just get together and pitch horse shoes and talk over the barby. Ma always makes up giant burgers and Pa flips them. Every year Ma says "Pa, you just stay there an' flip 'm. Don't go off none or they'll burn." Every year Ma says the same thing and every year Pa says "Ma, I wish you wouldn't, I wish you wouldn't always tell me what I already know. I never burned 'm last year an' I ain't burned 'm ever an' I ain't gunna burn 'm this year." Then every year Ma says the exact same thing back "Pa, you burned 'm one year an that's all I know." As the screen door flaps behind her she yells one more time "Don't go wanderin' off none."

  The family reunion wouldn't be the same if we didn't hear Ma and Pa grumble a bit. They love each other loads but I guess after sixty years of marriage they just got there own way about them and nothing's going to change.

  Ma and Pa

  Ma is a feisty old gal and gives Pa his no-for a couple of times a day. Ma is always trying to get Pa to take his nose out a his books. "Pa. Stop your readin' an take out the garbage. Put down your book an' get to the store for me."

  Pa likes his reading an I don't even know if Ma can read. Pa must have near over three hundred books and I've never seen Ma read any of them. One day he'll give'm all to the lendin' library that's out front of the post office an' then they'll have near twice as many as they got now. Ma says "I'm just too busy with cleanin', cookin', an bakin' to give no bother to no books."

  Ma is practical about everything and Pa lives in his head figuring this and figuring that. He figured out how to water all the pigs in one go with a hose and a trough an how to send straw down to the horses without breaking his back. Pa says "Just a little bit a lazy makes a man smart." Ma says "Yer too lazy an' yer books is only good for fire startin'." Pa says "Ya gotta understand yesterday to know tamara." Ma says "Put down yer cyclopedia and get me some firewood or I'll wack you with "A to C."

  The one thing that my Ma is not practical about is Christmas. Ma says, "Cleanin', cookin', an bakin' is what the dear baby Jesus would want me doin'. That and buying presents and going to church a few extra times I figure is what Christmas is all about." Ma is more generous and sometimes even more kind than Pa likes. She starts buying presents for just about everyone under the sun, on sale, in January, every year and keeps going ''before Christmas Eve. By the time December comes around all she has to worry about is getting Pa and me to cut the perfect tree and get it put up in the living room, in the corner, beside the piano; for Ma, the earlier the better.

  Ma is not a particularly dispassionate person but on the other hand she was not very emotional. To this day I have never seen her cry not even on that one Christmas Eve back a few years. As usual us brothers and sisters were all over to Ma and Pa's big house for the ritual Christmas Eve family gathering. Just imagine the Walton's standing around the piano singing and you get the picture. Ma was standing proud in front of the grand tree wearing what she called her best Sunday goin' to church dress admiring the fine job that Pa and me had done pickin' and cuttin' the biggest tree we had ever had. "Pa, are you sure it's gunna fit safe in that bucket? Don't want it fallin' over or nothin' foolish like that."

  "Ma, you are always worryin'. Just enjoy it quiet."

  It was a fine tree indeed, all decked out with fine glass balls, popcorn strings and delicate ornaments that have been in the family for generations. Every one of them had a special memory for Ma. "Put'm ginger, Put'm ginger" she would say as we gingerly put them, one by one, on the tree. Presents bulged from under the long bows looking just like last year's Christmas card.

  Well, like I was saying, Ma was standing there admiring the tree holding two glasses of cranberry Christmas punch, one in each hand, while Pa went off to get his camera. Well just as sure as cats got whiskers, Ma's mouth dropped open. She became paralyzed and speechless, as the tree slowly teetered to the left, then slowly wobbled to the right. It tilted ever so slightly back and then in a split second with a lurch flung itself forward like it had a mind of its own and kept on coming. Ma was so mesmerized with shock that she couldn't move a muscle. In a last second flinch of desperation she jerked back and both glasses of red punch flew down the front of her finest. She stood there for what seemed like an eternity with Grams' glass angel shattered at her feet. With everyone stunned into quivering silence no one moved or said a word. With a stoic sense of calm, Ma handed the empty glasses to Pa and walked peacefully to her room. Pa was smart enough to get the tree put back up and never mentioned it ever again. He was smart that way.

  Ma showed up a few minutes later in a different dress and asked Pa to get her a glass of punch. "Just one please an' ... only make it half." Ma sat down a safe distance from the tree and asked if anyone would like to sing "Oh Christmas Tree."

  Christmas and Easter were very important commemorations in our house. Ma tried to instill in us the importance of the virgin birth and the resurrection. It wasn't ''before I was almost sixteen that I realized not everyone celebrated the birth of Jesus let alone believed he was the son of God.

  Ma and Pa lived in that farm house from what seems like the beginning of time. It used to be my Pa's Grampa's farm way back about a hundred and fifty years or more. Pa says the farm is mine if I want it when him and Ma are gone but I'm no farmer. Ma says I'm just a bit too lazy to make me smart. Pa used to say I just needed a girl and then I would want the farm. Ma used to say I need a kick in the pants, and Pa was too buried in his books to give it to me. I have been married to Honey now for five years and I still don't want the farm.

  I grew up on the farm with my six brothers and sisters. Starting with the oldest it is Kimberley, Charlotte, Sarah and Mary, then me then Christopher. With my Pa I was the only other fellow on the farm when Chris packed up at about age sixteen, married an American girl, pretty gal. Can hardly blame him for wandering off and started work in a tire factory in Detroit. That's been over twenty years now and I have long stopped hoping my little brother would come back home
where I can see more of him. Chris hasn't been to our family reunion in years.

  Little Brother Chris

  I was going to start by saying Chris was my favourite brother but being my only brother that goes without saying. Same goes for him being my most handsome brother and for that matter he's my smartest, tallest brother too, but everyone pretty much says the same things when they are talking about the two of us. On the farm Chris was my deepest dearest friend. I say "was" not 'cause he's dead or nothing like that but simply because ever since his wife stole him from me I hardly ever see him anymore. Chris, being my little brother, used to follow me everywhere I went. I'd go feed the pigs and there was little Chrisie. I'd go pick peas, for Ma, for supper and there was little Chrisie. Down to the mail box and there was Chrisie. Because we had a two holer on the farm, even when I went out to the out-house to be alone there was my little brother Chris sitting beside me. I say that he got to be so smart, handy, even tall and handsome, because he hung around me so much.

  With Chris gone and before my sisters got married, it seemed that I lived with a bunch a girls for too many years. This might be the reason I was not in too much of a hurry to get married with so many women always around. There was Little Grams living only a couple a miles down the road and there was no man there and there was Big Grams living in the city and there was no man there. It seems to me that I had all the women in my life that I needed. Didn't know I needed a wife ''before I fell in love with Honey.