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Busy day ahead
Oct. 7th, 2006 10:32 amToday is our annual family reunion/business meeting. I think people have completely lost interest. The business meeting is partly why. Family rifts are also partly to blame. Those of you who have known me know about it. For those who are new, I'll explain.
Back in the 1600's, an Irish 13-year-old protestant named James "Smith" stowed away on a vessel leaving County Cork and heading for the colonies. What he was escaping we don't know because by the time someone went back to research his past, the church had burned down along with all records.
Was he really named Smith? Was he really protestant? We don't know. We do know he stayed in the Irish community once he got here which seems to by typical. The family remained purely Irish until my grandmother's generation got married.
In the 1800's his descendents had flourished and four brothers also named Smith packed up their families and left Pennsylvania in Conestoga Wagons to head west. In 1923, their decendents published a hard-bound family history book. It's a bit hard to read the way it was formatted.
Back in the 1970's, my grandmother and her extended family decided they needed to update that book and formed a non-profit organization for this purpose. They started gathering information about current descendents and threw big weekend gatherings every year to have the required meeting for the non-profit with election of officers. In those days we went places for it. Sometimes it was held in Sutter County, sometimes at Clear Lake and sometimes at the coast. I always tried to duck the meetings. I was a teenager and in my early 20's back then and uninterested in official drivel.
One of my favorite reunions was at the ranch of Gramma's cousin and her husband. He was a cattle rancher and let us ride his stallion. Unfortunately for me, we arrived just as they were taking his saddle off and he wanted his alfalfa. The cousins who had been riding him put the saddle back on (badly) and I tried to guide him to the road. He didn't want to go and started rearing up. The loose saddle actually helped me out a bit. I stuck my hand under the front edge of it to cling to his back. All my city slicker relatives were horrified, sure I'd be thrown off but I knew enough to keep my heels down and to let the reins go slack. After he couldn't throw me with a few tries and realizing I'd given him his head, he stopped and walked back to the barn. Harland always asked me after that if I wanted to ride his horse. I always said "Yes!" lol
Somehow someone in the Oregon branch of the family found out we were updating the book and they were interested. They formed a branch non-profit with us. They donated part of their hundreds of acres of homesteaded land as a family campground. Then there were two reunions every year. Theirs is still well-attended. Ours is not.
As people aged, travel became difficult. Our reunion shrank down to one day. Then breakfast was cut. Then dinner was cut. Now it's an afternoon affair at someone's home. We're down to the last appropriate person's home now and she says this is the last year she's having it because she's just too old. She is approaching 80, so yeah.
My dad had been president for many years. Nobody wants to be elected officer, you see. A couple of years before he died, they gave me a karaoke machine for Christmas and Dad said it came with the requirement that I lead karaoke at the family reunions. I was fine with that. When he got sick, he wanted either my sister or me to take over being president because the only other family interested were flakier than hell. My sister was teaching school and was too busy. I took it. I was willing to do anything to make his mind rest easy.
He had been working on the book all these years and an actual Smith showed up and was interested in taking it over. That helped his mind rest easy, too.
Then he died. He tried to get the current officers onto the bank account, but had us fill out the wrong forms. That meant all three people on the account, his grandmother, his sister and he were all dead. The bank required us to produce all the official documents on the non-profit, death certificates of the deceased account signers, a current bank statement, meeting minutes from the last meeting and a letter signed by the entire board to be presented before they'd put us on the account. We got everything except the non-profit certificate. That had been in the possession of my aunt. She was about as organized as I am except she hid it by stuffing every bit of clutter into garbage bags and stacking them in her garage. I assume the offical non-profit paperwork ended up in a garbage bag and was discarded by her frustrated daughters when they cleared her house out.
It took me a couple of years to get things straightened out with the state and the bank. The other officers were from the flakey family and did nothing. It fell to me to write and send the annual reunion letter and to try to figure things out. What a relief when the year the book was published also was the year the Smith guy agreed to be Secretary/Treasurer! He's a get-it-done kind of guy. He did the letter! YAY! Last year he asked we split off the Treasurer role and my uncle Bob took it. Whew! The vice-president is still of the do-nothing family but that's OK.
/end of saga
In about an hour, I've got to grab my karaoke stuff and head over with the broccoli salad I made last night. Oh yeah, and the meeting binder. I'm leading off the karaoke with Linda Ronstadt's "Back in the U.S.A." even though I don't like the background music much. If it's like last year, I'll be singing songs people want to hear and maybe get a cousin or sister up to sing with me. There are only 9 people who RSVPed. This might be the year we decided to fold the family association. The book is published. Our purpose is achieved. Now if only there weren't unfinished issues with the Oregon branch it would be easy.
After the reunion
Jonathan has his first school dance at his new school tonight. April has a previous engagement to go to a show in San Francisco, so she won't be there to take him. I get to take him and pick him up!! YAY! He's all nervous. He's joined several clubs including GLABT.. because a really cute "straight" girl invited him. He actually crushed on another girl in the group and was trying to get up the courage to ask her to the dance. Tuesday he did it and she said yes! He called Eric and talked to him about it when I was in Lab. I talked to him on Wednesday and agreed to be his transportation. The girl is getting there and home on her own. Silly boy forgot I said yes and was desperately trying to reach me again Thursday night when I was in class. He's so nervous that he wants me to come by earlier than he needs me so we can talk. I guess I'll help clean up after the reunion, drop off my karaoke stuff and head right over to his house to provide encouragement and calmness, if calmness is even possible.
I'm really looking forward to picking him up afterwards to see his reactions while they're still fresh! I hope he has a really wonderful time!
Well, I was waiting for my adderall to kick in so I'd be organized. It's in force now. I'd better get my booty moving!
Back in the 1600's, an Irish 13-year-old protestant named James "Smith" stowed away on a vessel leaving County Cork and heading for the colonies. What he was escaping we don't know because by the time someone went back to research his past, the church had burned down along with all records.
Was he really named Smith? Was he really protestant? We don't know. We do know he stayed in the Irish community once he got here which seems to by typical. The family remained purely Irish until my grandmother's generation got married.
In the 1800's his descendents had flourished and four brothers also named Smith packed up their families and left Pennsylvania in Conestoga Wagons to head west. In 1923, their decendents published a hard-bound family history book. It's a bit hard to read the way it was formatted.
Back in the 1970's, my grandmother and her extended family decided they needed to update that book and formed a non-profit organization for this purpose. They started gathering information about current descendents and threw big weekend gatherings every year to have the required meeting for the non-profit with election of officers. In those days we went places for it. Sometimes it was held in Sutter County, sometimes at Clear Lake and sometimes at the coast. I always tried to duck the meetings. I was a teenager and in my early 20's back then and uninterested in official drivel.
One of my favorite reunions was at the ranch of Gramma's cousin and her husband. He was a cattle rancher and let us ride his stallion. Unfortunately for me, we arrived just as they were taking his saddle off and he wanted his alfalfa. The cousins who had been riding him put the saddle back on (badly) and I tried to guide him to the road. He didn't want to go and started rearing up. The loose saddle actually helped me out a bit. I stuck my hand under the front edge of it to cling to his back. All my city slicker relatives were horrified, sure I'd be thrown off but I knew enough to keep my heels down and to let the reins go slack. After he couldn't throw me with a few tries and realizing I'd given him his head, he stopped and walked back to the barn. Harland always asked me after that if I wanted to ride his horse. I always said "Yes!" lol
Somehow someone in the Oregon branch of the family found out we were updating the book and they were interested. They formed a branch non-profit with us. They donated part of their hundreds of acres of homesteaded land as a family campground. Then there were two reunions every year. Theirs is still well-attended. Ours is not.
As people aged, travel became difficult. Our reunion shrank down to one day. Then breakfast was cut. Then dinner was cut. Now it's an afternoon affair at someone's home. We're down to the last appropriate person's home now and she says this is the last year she's having it because she's just too old. She is approaching 80, so yeah.
My dad had been president for many years. Nobody wants to be elected officer, you see. A couple of years before he died, they gave me a karaoke machine for Christmas and Dad said it came with the requirement that I lead karaoke at the family reunions. I was fine with that. When he got sick, he wanted either my sister or me to take over being president because the only other family interested were flakier than hell. My sister was teaching school and was too busy. I took it. I was willing to do anything to make his mind rest easy.
He had been working on the book all these years and an actual Smith showed up and was interested in taking it over. That helped his mind rest easy, too.
Then he died. He tried to get the current officers onto the bank account, but had us fill out the wrong forms. That meant all three people on the account, his grandmother, his sister and he were all dead. The bank required us to produce all the official documents on the non-profit, death certificates of the deceased account signers, a current bank statement, meeting minutes from the last meeting and a letter signed by the entire board to be presented before they'd put us on the account. We got everything except the non-profit certificate. That had been in the possession of my aunt. She was about as organized as I am except she hid it by stuffing every bit of clutter into garbage bags and stacking them in her garage. I assume the offical non-profit paperwork ended up in a garbage bag and was discarded by her frustrated daughters when they cleared her house out.
It took me a couple of years to get things straightened out with the state and the bank. The other officers were from the flakey family and did nothing. It fell to me to write and send the annual reunion letter and to try to figure things out. What a relief when the year the book was published also was the year the Smith guy agreed to be Secretary/Treasurer! He's a get-it-done kind of guy. He did the letter! YAY! Last year he asked we split off the Treasurer role and my uncle Bob took it. Whew! The vice-president is still of the do-nothing family but that's OK.
/end of saga
In about an hour, I've got to grab my karaoke stuff and head over with the broccoli salad I made last night. Oh yeah, and the meeting binder. I'm leading off the karaoke with Linda Ronstadt's "Back in the U.S.A." even though I don't like the background music much. If it's like last year, I'll be singing songs people want to hear and maybe get a cousin or sister up to sing with me. There are only 9 people who RSVPed. This might be the year we decided to fold the family association. The book is published. Our purpose is achieved. Now if only there weren't unfinished issues with the Oregon branch it would be easy.
After the reunion
Jonathan has his first school dance at his new school tonight. April has a previous engagement to go to a show in San Francisco, so she won't be there to take him. I get to take him and pick him up!! YAY! He's all nervous. He's joined several clubs including GLABT.. because a really cute "straight" girl invited him. He actually crushed on another girl in the group and was trying to get up the courage to ask her to the dance. Tuesday he did it and she said yes! He called Eric and talked to him about it when I was in Lab. I talked to him on Wednesday and agreed to be his transportation. The girl is getting there and home on her own. Silly boy forgot I said yes and was desperately trying to reach me again Thursday night when I was in class. He's so nervous that he wants me to come by earlier than he needs me so we can talk. I guess I'll help clean up after the reunion, drop off my karaoke stuff and head right over to his house to provide encouragement and calmness, if calmness is even possible.
I'm really looking forward to picking him up afterwards to see his reactions while they're still fresh! I hope he has a really wonderful time!
Well, I was waiting for my adderall to kick in so I'd be organized. It's in force now. I'd better get my booty moving!
