My mother used to say that she knew only one other person who loved and appreciated cousins as much as I did, and he was an only child like me.
My childhood was marked by two months, July and January. July was the time of our mid-year family reunion when I would see all my cousins from Oklahoma and Chattanooga, and my entire extended family would get together to spend the Fourth of July at my grandparents’ lake house.
When I was really young, I actually counted down the days until this event. I would even come up with elaborate plans months in advance as to what games my cousins and I would play and what activities we would participate in. I made sure that my mom got a list of all my cousins’ favorite foods so we could go on a big shopping trip to prepare for their arrival, all of which served as more of a means to celebrate anticipation.
During the actual event, every year was always the same. My cousins and I would spend hours swimming in the lake, fighting over pool floats and waiting for the boat rides my uncle would take us on. These were always punctuated with thrilling tube rides and attempts at water skiing.
After the strenuous activities of a day in the sun, I would either be soothed to a state of restful peace and slumber by the long and faintly interesting conversations of my aunts and uncles or, more likely, my cousins would pull me to the basement to participate in a ping pong game, which we always played by our own rules and an arbitrary scoring system.