Last Sunday, I was at a family gathering in Knoxville when one of my wife’s stepbrothers sat down beside me on a couch. He immediately began to make small talk.
“It’s good to see all these folks somewhere besides a funeral,” he said, gesturing around the room as he nibbled on cheese and crackers.
The occasion was the celebration of new addition to the family, and this was a gathering of the baby’s aunts, uncles and cousins. All took turns holding the cuddly little boy as iPhone cameras recorded the tender moments.
Meanwhile, I pulled out my smartphone to text my son’s soccer coach, noting “he’s at a family reunion today, and won’t be attending practice.” Typing the words “family reunion” kindled boyhood memories.
I began to think about those honeysuckle-sweet summer days in the 1960s and 1970s, when my family would pile in our Oldsmobile station wagon and head out to the little community of Kettle Mills in rural Middle Tennessee. There, we would visit with my father’s cousins and my great-uncle Ralph Kennedy and his sister, Pauline.