Coming Together...Tales of Semi...Reunions

Mom's gearing up for another family reunion...and I'm sooooo glad I'm an hour and a half away from the cleaning frenzy.While I have often mentioned to my mother that any relative that perused our closet baseboards for errant cobs was a relative we didn't really need to be related to -- but she didn't buy it. There was the weeding. The raking. The lawn furniture had to be moved just so, the inside chairs needed to be checked for inherent sturdiness. The lazy Susan had to be cleared off, Murphy'd, rebalanced. The cupboard's under the sink were sorted and cleaned. The floors were buffed. The ladybugs were swept out of every flippin window. The attic had to be attacked...and for a couple of years, we even had to clear out the basement!! (And NOTE: Mom has always had more security procedures in place to keep people out of the attic and basement than the Pentagon could dream of on its best day...) The stairs were swept and polished. All of the floors were swept and polished...including the shag carpeting -- Ah, there's actually a gag order still in play regarding that carpet. Go figure. We dusted between the banister rails. We dusted the chandeliers. We dusted between our toes. For one solitary afternoon the house would be immaculate, perfect, downright worthy of sainthood. For three or four months prior, it was a wreck as seven different tornadoes whipped through, demolishing, rebuilding...making it all better, stronger, faster. Tempers roiled and seethed. Oh, it would get done -- oh, yes, it would get done, but we would buck and fuss and grouse the whole way through. We accepted our To-Do Lists as though they were our final sentences, but the house would glow all warm and fuzzy when the last dustpan headed into that Great Trashcan in the Sky. As we grew up and moved out, the lists got smaller, and Mom has finally become somewhat calmer in her preparations for it. I like to mention to my mother that for the past seven years, my room (at her house) has been perfectly clean, but she just laughs at me.






This reunion was lovely, but sad. Grandpa O. had received a pacemaker and was recovering in the care center next door, but while it was convenient in proximity, it was a very rough time for him. He was having awful reactions to all of his antibiotics, and even came down with oral thrush, because of them. He couldn't really eat much because everything tasted like acid, and he had a rash all over his body that could have been a) a reaction to the strong laundry detergent that the center used, b)a reaction to the medications and/or c) psychosomatic due to the stress of the operation and his aggravation at being couped up in the center. For several days, he was kitten-weak, but that didn't shut his brain down. He was not a happy camper, and while he is by nature, normally a demure and soft-spoken fellow (an inherited trait, obviously)he had no trouble expressing his point of view, and grumped at anyone within range. He was allowed to come over for lunch and was actually perking up quite a bit towards the end of his visit. (At the time of this writing, he's been home for almost a week and is doing fine.)
This was the first time in ages that all five kids in the D. Herd had been reunited, and we spent much of our time together chasing after Josh and his cousin, Little Mark. Josh had his first real experience with a wading pool and spent his day splashing happily, or tailing gamely after Little Mark, who basked in the attention like a boy-king. As evening settled in, and the rest of the Reunion-ers headed back to their homes, the main D. contingent headed out to the garden table. There, surrounded by citronella candles, our faces glimmering in and out of the light, we toasted Uncle Jim. He had been kind enough to remember all of us, and we tried very hard to return the favor. I listened more than I watched, as my Dad in a halting voice, reached into his past and tried to recall the special times he had had with his brother. I listened as all of us tried to do the same. I think what saddens me the most about Jim's passing is that because he was a man who kept so much to himself, no one could honestly say that they knew him well. I remember him as a artisan and a craftsman...a man who could create honest beauty with his hands...and a man who's booming laugh entered a room before he did. I also remember him as an incredibly sharp and well-read fellow...but also as a man who seemed to not know what to do with himself in a group of people...it was as though he was always searching for a place to put his feet. He was good to me, and I truly wish I knew more of the person he really was. I can't help wondering if we will all keep reaching for those memories...trying to tease more substance out of a few moments in time, trying to learn more about the enigma that was Jim, and I wonder if we'll ever succeed. In so many ways, he was a silhouette against a bonfire. You knew he had been, but you could never accurately describe him.

* * * * *

One day, Josh and I were settling into our morning routine. He had been very good and had actually slept in until 8:30...I woke up feeling like a real person for once. He was cheerful, he did not fuss. He watched Oobi and ate his cereal and only threw three pieces of Kix onto the floor that time...(as opposed to wearing the cereal and bowl as a hat...which had been a common occurrence)...all was well. I plopped him into Kiddie Jail (the playpen) for a few minutes of strategic retreat to the facilities, Sesame Street had ended...he was enraptured...at ten-ten a.m. , life was good --- and then at ten-fifteen, the house began to shake. There were four loud bangs, shaking our solid little house from floor to ceiling each time. I dashed into the living room, only to find a wide-eyed and perfectly safe Josh watching me from his playpen. I ran through the house, and threw open the front door to see two strange dogs running up the hill across the street and my little grandmother, Irene wobbling after them. Don't get me wrong, Irene is a fit and fast moving critter, but she is also a little bird of a woman, and she's prone to fluttering about the rafters at any given moment, and when she gets fluttery, she moves fluttery. My first thought was that she was going to try to catch those stupid dogs and I didn't need her hysterical AND bitten, so I pretty well force marched her into my house and made her watch Josh while I went out to assess the situation. And what a doozy it was! A semi-truck loaded with powdered lime had lost control as it rounded the far curve by our house. About fifteen feet after the initial steering trouble, it hit the fresh, unhardened gravel berm on the edge of the road, and from that point on, there was no chance of the driver regaining control of the steel berserker. He slammed into our mailboxes, and took out all three of them in one fell swoop. He then crashed just by one of the marker-posts by the opposite driveway (this post remained standing for two days afterwards, only to finally sink onto its side as a result of heavy rain on the disrupted earth), took out the second marker-post on the other side of the driveway, before coming to a shattered stop four feet into the earth and one hundred and twenty five feet from the original point of Oh S---!ness The dogs had come from the cab of the truck, and the driver sprang out seemingly lucid and with the exception of one banged up arm, unhurt. The lady behind the truck had Onstar, and she called them, but it was still a good hour before the Staties showed up. In the meantime, the lady, Harry and I all started directing traffic on a stretch of road that was always hazardous, even without a big rig sprawled by it. The heat was intense, and so was the adrenaline. My job was to keep the ijiots (and there were too many to count) from jockeying forward around one curve while Harry and the Onstar Lady helped from the other curve. We had no flares, and people are really fond of speeding along this stretch of road, so the situation was rather hairy...I also noticed that the scent of diesel fuel and gas was getting strong enough to water my eyes at twenty feet, and I was really afraid that the stupid truck was going to blow. I'm hot. I've been standing bareheaded in absurd heat for over an hour, with no water, no caffeine, nothing but waning adrenaline. I'm so ragged at that point that I can barely keep my hands up to stop and slow the folks on my end, all of whom are edging forward ghoulishly to get a better look at the beached truck. I'm fairly certain I'm going to get blown up any minute now, the police haven't arrived yet, and I get a tap on my shoulder -- Thank God, it's the relief crew. I turned gratefully to my nineteen -year old brother-in-law. He looked at me with a serious, dead earnest expression and said: "Dad wants to know if your toilet is running." :P I was to tired to kick him in the head, but made a mental note to do so at a later time.
The police finally showed...two deputies...no fire truck. The road crew that had just finished that part of the road that very morning, after a week of patching and grinding and resurfacing, were called back in. Every single big truck in our county was parked in our pull-off and driveway. The diesel had to be pumped out by one truck, cleaned up by the crew of at least two others. The lime had to be transferred to yet another truck. At least two further trucks were required to retrieve the semi from it's final resting place, and then I think there was at least one truck that just sat in our driveway and looked good. The circus left town at 9:40 that evening. The next day, the road crew came back, and re-scraped and resurfaced and re-polished the blacktop for what I can only hope will be the final time. The totalled truck cost about $80, 000. I believe an estimate on just resurfacing the road added $20,000 to the mix, and I don't even know what it will take to re-landscape Harry's property, but on the other hand, the driver got his dogs back. The other good news is that I still owe Torey a boot to the head...and I'm really looking forward to that.

* * * * *

One of the last big things to happen was that I finally sucked it up, and went to my class reunion. I had avoided the last two deliberately, because I am an abject coward. For the better part of my life, I let myself be defined by the kids I grew up with, and I wouldn't forgive them for some of the mental wounds they had inflicted on me. When I walked across the stage at graduation, it felt as though I could finally leave all of the angst behind me, and that from that point on, I didn't just have to watch them all from the outside. I was a new person...I started from that point on. However, I forgot something rather important, something that Jon took time to remind me of as I dragged him among people he had never met before. They weren't kids anymore either, life had also happened to them. As I talked to him (though I was still fully intent on using him as shield/buffer/bouncer if need be), I also realized that the people who had come to this gathering also weren't the people who had made my school life so miserable. These were the people I wanted to see. The ones I had always rooted for...the ones who's laughter was a welcome invitation, not a wall to keep me out. There was Julie and Mike, the couple that had more or less been in love - in utero, still together, still darling, still sweet. Before I met Jon, they were my ideal couple, everything I thought a couple in love should be ( - now, I think we could give them a run for their money). There was Amy and her husband Kirby. She spoke to me Mom-to-Mom, all smiles, all genuine, warm and fuzzy and welcoming. Elisa and Brooke, the organizers....I remember them as balls of energy, incapable of stillness, and here they are polished, professional, adults. There was Trevor, the former wild-boy, mellower, more relaxed, more confident, but as always, interested and generous and kind. I looked at these faces...some of them could have just stepped out of the yearbook's cover...others look like they've spent their entire lives as adults. Some of them still hover in my mind's eye as the little ones they once were. I can look at Julie and remember her missing baby teeth and with her face framed by platinum-white curls tied back by a ribbon. I look at Trevor, and hear in my head his loud, distinctive laugh at some joke in the choir room -- laughing so hard that he has to cling to someone else's shoulders just to stand up. There's Scotty...little Scotty, biggest clown in the world...now taller than I am, and the oh-so-responsible working man and father of two. I left the reunion feeling so much better than I had coming into it. I actually felt that I was flying. So many people have left fingerprints on my heart...they helped to make me the person I am today. If I hadn't gone to this reunion, I would have forgotten about the ones that really made a difference in my life...the ones who showed me what I had to offer and helped me find my voice. To have forgotten these people...to have forgotten, even for a moment, what these people really did to bring warmth and a joy for life into my heart... that really would have been the most unforgivable thing of all. I needed the reminder...I came away from that experience in absolute awe of what they...of what time... had accomplished...and I wonder if there's hope for me after all. They all seem to wear the cloak of adulthood so gracefully...so calmly...and I've always dragged my feet at the thought of growing up... Years ago, I looked to them to start me in life...all of these years later, I look again to my friends of the past for direction...and as always, they have answered the summons with flair. Once again, they've shown me what I really can do...and once again, I am deeply in their debt.