Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 5

The pinnacle of Hubby’s Family Reunion is the Saturday evening meal together. At the last reunion, my favorite aunt in Hubby’s family and I had two glasses of wine each at the Saturday evening meal while one of Hubby’s cousins described how he was going to build an atom splitter in his garage and create cold fusion. The wine was medicinal. Otherwise, we would have set our hair on fire and run screaming into the night.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think it would be possible to top that. I think that my imagination is perhaps not wild enough as this reunion topped it. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, one of the cousins decided to have her wedding before the Saturday evening meal. I always find it interesting that people often choose a traditional church wedding ceremony in spite of the fact that it doesn’t reflect their personal spirituality. This is made painfully obvious when the couple repeat vows with facial expressions that are more “What am I promising because I have no idea what the dude in the robe is saying!” than “Right on! I pledge thee my faith and plight thee my troth.”

Even better, there was no wine as the dinner was in the basement of a local Methodist church. Some things are not meant to be experienced stone cold sober. Note to self, buy a hip flask before the next reunion. Note to self, remember to fill said hip flask with some of Kentucky’s finest bourbon.

As if that weren’t excitement enough, there was after dinner entertainment by an amateur storyteller and songwriter. I was able to finish the cuff of a sock and start the heel flap during the performance.

Hubby and I left as soon as we thought we could without engendering any bad feelings from the family. Back in the hotel room, I laid on the bed looking up at the ceiling pulling myself together. I spent a lot of time in the hotel room. I read. I knit. I watched t.v. I kept myself out of trouble.

One of the things about the South and Southern families in particular is this concept of blood. If you are not blood, even though you are on intimate terms with one of the family by blood, you are not truly family. You are an outsider. Outsiders cannot know family secrets. Outsiders cannot be trusted. Outsiders are also regarded with more than a little suspicion.

Another thing is that Southern families, while they can engage in some terribly misogynistic behavior, are a matriarchcal system. The co-matriarchs have died and there is some serious positioning for who will be the next matriarch. Oh, and the matriarch must be blood. The matriarch must be vigilant and guard against usurpers and those who might possibly not want to retain the family tradition and honor. While I have no desire to be Queen Bee, I do find several things a bit stifling. In particular the feeling that I have been transported into the Leave It to Beaver show.

While many of the women in the group have great careers and are doing some very creative things, in Reunion Land these achievements mean little. There is a tension between the younger generation (by younger, I mean the cousins approaching 40) and the old guard who need to keep the myth of Leave it to Beaver alive. There is no end to the chauvinism.

The truth is, in a family marinated and macerated in tradition, I have a hard time not stepping in it. So, I go. I sit. I knit. I pray that no one inherited the box of dead people’s hair and insist that I touch it. I pray that we leave before Hubby becomes too obnoxiously chauvinistic and we have to have the little talk about how real men don’t talk condescendingly to the women in their lives because it is a lack of respect and does not honor the image of the Creator in her. I pray that we leave before I let fly with the sarcastic wit in response to some phony and condescending behavior. I pray that we leave before I am struck dead by Divine lightning for what I am thinking. Most of all, I pray that I do not come across one of those killer snakes.