Ours was a very close-knit family, and summer was the season for our backyard cookouts. My aunts showed slides of their most recent travels, and my father and his kid brother, Uncle Ferdie, took my brother and me to the playground next door to play horseshoes.
Gee, I miss that! I’ve just realized I am now the oldest living member of my family: no one left with whom to play horseshoes. No more hamburgers on the grill. Grandpa John and his brother Jacob, visiting from Holland, used to treat us to harmonica concerts. I still have my harmonica, but no one to chime in with the mandolin.
The heat of the summer didn’t seem to matter, back then: we were all having too good a time to notice. Oh, the clinking and the ringing of the horseshoes on the metal stake!
But I’m sure there’ll be some of that in Heaven.
Sounds like your young days were a lot like mine. We played all kinds of games, the musical ones did their thing, and we ate scrumptious meals. I haven’t many family members left either.
My boyhood home was on the outskirts of a small city, on an acre of land, which made it the logical gathering place for family, some who might travel over an hour to come to a cook out. We were of modest means, but my parents kept the fridge well stocked with high quality meats from a nearby meat market. There were store brand potato chips, maybe some beans and always plenty of green Kool Aid. In later years, when the family was more prosperous, the Kool Aid was replaced with Diet Rite Cola, but whatever the fare, we had a great time.
One aunt, who lived an hour away had a sweet tooth, so my mom always baked a cake when she came to visit. I don’t remember if visiting relatives ever brought food, but I wouldn’t have paid attention either way, because my interest was in hamburgers, hot dogs and potato chips with the edge dipped in ketchup.
When we had cookouts, they were real events, usually lasting late into the night. Most of my relatives were teetotalers, or would consume only one can of beer per day, so there were no alcohol fueled conflicts to contend with. Our modest home had a fairly spacious living room and dining area, so when the sun set, or perhaps when the mosquitoes got too bad, we would retire to the living room for hours of conversation and companionship. Sometimes a fierce game of Gin Rummy would break out and last until the indecent hour of 10 PM, or so.
Like yourself, I am the oldest living person to bear my family’s surname and the herd has thinned greatly from what it was 60 years ago. Of all the many relatives who visited on my dad’s side of the family, only three are alive to this day, and we are all geographically separated by many miles. I’m afraid my cookout days are over, because it’s not the charcoal, the hamburgers, the hot dogs, the chips, the ketchup, the green Kool Aid or even the frosty Diet Rite Colas, but it’s the people that made the events so enjoyable. I’d be happy to eat lawn clippings, if I could return to the company of the family I knew as a child.
Very well said!
Thanks.
Since my cousins were all so much older than us, we didn’t have family reunions unless a wedding or a funeral was happening. Our family lived in a row house on Emerald Street in Philadelphia. We would get together with the Kaspers, the Kits, Mrs. Smith and her boys and grill burgers and hot dogs out in Wissinoming Park. The age range for all the kids amongst us ensured that we had a lot of fun running around playing tag or statues. Those summer days were a blast. And, yes, I miss those times.
Statues? Wow!
We never had cookouts until we started taking our vacations at Bass Lake, California (below Yosemite). When a bunch of family came to our house (the meeting place) we just had someone go buy a bunch of finger-licking chicken.