Tag Archives: family reunions

Memoir of a watershed weekend

As I’m sure you know from news reports, I had another birthday this weekend. I keep waiting for someone to yell “Walker is in his 70s! This is ridiculous! Aren’t we going to do something about this?”

But no one ever does. It’s almost as if the world doesn’t care.

But aside from that, it was a pretty good weekend. The best birthday I can remember in a long time.

Got a free meal from a family member, who drove a considerable distance to be with me. That’s appreciated.

Also took advantage of a couple freebies in restaurants I frequent, over the week.

I heard that translation work may be coming this week. And even that my car part might come in (!).

Also a couple other items I don’t feel free to share publicly. One of them was that a big mistake I thought I’d made turned out to not be nearly as big as I thought. Made my crowded interior life a touch roomier than it’s been.

Then on Sunday, I drove down to Kenyon for our every-other-year (I can never remember whether the word is “biennial” or “semi-annual”) family reunion. A bittersweet one.

We held it in Depot Park, next to the municipal swimming pool and across the road from the bare spot where the old Root Beer stand used to be. The weather was beautiful, unusually so for the beginning of August in Minnesota.

Attendance was down. Scheduling conflicts, Covid fears. I don’t know what all. Perhaps the main reason is that the old mainstays, “the Cousins,” grandchildren of our immigrant patriarch John Walker, have mostly died off now. It’s become a reunion of second and third cousins. And second and third cousins tend to be less invested in one another than their “cousin” parents.

And, of course, all the families are smaller nowadays.

The word around the picnic tables was that this was likely to be the last Walker reunion ever.

There was a small crisis to handle. Cousin Doris, widow of Cousin Jim, had some family history items she needed to pass on, since she’s moving to an apartment. Among them were a lot of family letters – significance unknown. And my great-grandmother’s wedding dress from 1890. And Great-Aunt Charlotte’s porcelain doll (possibly valuable). Plus four very large photographic portraits, of my great-grandparents and of their individual parents, in couple shots, dating back to the mid-19th Century.

I took it all, except for the doll (fear not; it found a home). I have no place to display the photos, but I’m the family historian, so they go to me. In my basement for now.

I find it poignant and sort of metaphorical that our family heirlooms, such as they are, should end up in the home of a childless man. After me, who knows what will become of them?

I need to put labels on them.

Weekend and Monday report

Today was a good day. I got some translation work, after a month of nothing. Oddly enough, it was in Swedish, which constituted a bit of a challenge. My boss said she understood some of it would probably baffle me. But I think I got most of it OK. If you can read Norwegian, reading Swedish is generally just a matter of lateral thinking. It took me about 5 ½ hours.

The weekend involved the great, biennial (means every other year; I still have to look it up) Walker Family Reunion. This year we held it in the Depot Park in Kenyon, Minnesota, instead of one of the old family farms. The Depot Park is next to the municipal swimming pool, which goes back all the way in time to my childhood. After the Chicago & Great Western Railroad tore up their line, the depot was given to the city as a picnic shelter, and moved across town. It’s decorated inside with a number of historical signs – the old apex of the false front of the Kenyon Opera House (a fancy name for the vaudeville theater), the scoreboard from the old ball field, the railroad crossing “X” sign, etc.

This was almost – but not quite – the year my generation got to be the Old Folks. But one representative of my dad’s cousins showed up – using a walker, but there and welcome. Then of course there’s the cousin who’s the son of the youngest daughter in my great-grandfather’s family, who married late. So he’s almost young enough to be my cousin, but is in fact my great uncle. Or something.

Nice day, lots of food. Many stories told. “You still working at the library?” they ask. No, other things are happening now. Movie scripts? Really? And we always thought you were respectable!

Nothing went wrong at all, and yet when it was done I felt like I’d done nine rounds with Evander Holyfield. Hours and hours of human society. Oh, the humanity! I collapsed into bed and slept like an honest man.

Hi-yo, Hiatus!

Hiatus. A word with mixed associations for me, having undergone surgery for a hiatus hernia some years back…

TMI? Probably.

In any case, the word also has its positive meaning. I’m on a brief hiatus now, having finished my last summer course on Saturday, and having begun a week of vacation today. I plan to fritter away my time cleaning the house, and maybe watch a few shows on Netflix. Tried the first episode of “Peaky Blinders” last night, on Andrew Klavan’s recommendation. Verdict: No, not for me. Too sunny and optimistic.

My grad school course was “Back of the Book Indexing,” which I never even knew was a discipline. I knew there were indexes in the backs of nonfiction books, and that they were often very valuable. I had no idea there were different ways to organize them, and debates raging between scholars and librarians as to how they should be alphabetized. Very abstruse stuff, and in the end it tends to be kind of subjective. But I think it was probably the most fun class I’ve taken in my graduate curriculum. It didn’t hurt that the instructor was bubbly and enthusiastic and seemed to think everything I wrote was just wonderful!

In September I’ll start my final (God willing) semester of classes. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for bearing with me through the process.

A couple Sundays ago I went down to Kenyon, the old home town, for the semiannual (biannual? Every two years) family reunion. Attendance was down this year. Not only have we lost a couple archs (the patri- and matri- kind), but it seems to me as the old people pass on, the younger people see less reason to rally round. The old folks were the big exhibits that drew in the crowds. I’m becoming one of the old folks myself, but I think I lack the venerability of the pioneers.

Cousin Tom, from a distant city, said to me, “Don’t sneak away without saying goodbye. I’ve got something I want to give you.” Continue reading Hi-yo, Hiatus!