Mason Reunion - Sunday

It was a beautiful day for a reunion. One of the best days we've had in our many years of reunions. The temperature was only in the 70's, the sun was out most of the time, and the sky was beautiful with its mixture of colors.

My cousins had done a wonderful job in mowing and readying the farm inside and out for the reunion. The yard and the fields were so lush and green. The crop this year was corn, much to my girls' delight, but it wasn't too high due to earlier rains making getting lost in the cornfields not an activity for this reunion.

Instead the girls played corn hole, climbed on bales of hay, pumped water out of the well, and swung from a rope out of a tree on the side of the house. We didn't see them for most of the day unless they ran through asking for us to take pictures. There wasn't any swimming in the pond as it hadn't been treated in a while and the weather didn't make swimming a necessity as in past years.

There was a bigger turn out for the reunion than the wiener roast. I don't know the official count, but I would say over fifty people showed. This year my Aunt brought and insisted on name tags, a tradition that my father started years ago, but one that has been abandoned since the Master Mix name tags ran out.

The table was full of food from fresh corn to homemade corn casserole. There was fried chicken, Lorene's homemade noodles, pasta dishes, salads, and an array of desserts that included Cindy's infamous homemade cinnamon rolls. The only thing missing was Indiana cantaloupe.

I had noticed in going through years of my father's reunion photos that I've been at the head of the food line since aging. This had me concluding that it was obviously a family tradition and I've worked hard at continuing the tradition even resorting to cutting in the line until now everyone is on board.

After filling our faces, we sat around and chewed the fat and looked at old photos my sister had found. I tried to make my way around the farm to chat with everyone, but as usual, I left feeling that I didn't get my fill of family gossip. People are traveling from farther away and having to leave earlier to get home to work the next day. This makes it harder to sit around and try to catch up with relatives.

I also realized that the younger generation doesn't have the memories that I have of vacationing on the far. Most of them were born after my grandparents died and didn't grow up fishing in the pond, throwing field corn to the hogs, and milking the goats like my brother and I did.

Sigh!