WANDERINGS FROM YOUR PRESIDENT
BY GAYLE STUART
Don’t judge me by my relatives, I didn’t choose them!
How many of us have a relative that we wish would climb back into the woodwork? I’m sure that when we were growing up, there was somebody that our parents or aunts and uncles would not talk to us “young” people about. It was not any of our business.
Most of the time, it probably was not anything really serious and now days we would not think anything of it. We would just laugh and shake our heads and wonder what the big secret was all about.
Relatives are people we get stuck with at birth, good, bad, or otherwise. These are the people who need to be invited to family reunions and when someone dies, they need to be notified. Some of these can cause quite a stir when they arrive.
Do you have someone in your family that others considered a black sheep? What did that person really do to get that label attached to him? Did he spend time in jail? Was he/she fined a large amount for putting wash out on the line on Sunday?
I had an uncle who they say would supply a few guys up in the North woods of Minnesota with moonshine. His still was in the swamp someplace. I’m sure that some of the nephews had a good idea where it was.
I think that we all have aunts, uncles and cousins who don’t have the right year of birth, because their parents were not married. Who is the father of some of these? Quite often not whom the person grew up thinking was their father or mother.
Then we have relatives who can’t say anything nice and wonder why people shun them. Others are just the opposite and can only think and say kind words.
How about someone who spent time in a sanitarium or in a restricted home? No one talks about them. What is there to hide?
When we get to the great beyond are all our relatives going to say “so you are the one disturbing our quiet time. Now what didn’t you find out that you want to know?”
gbs