Stranded

Whilst at the recent family reunion, I applied one of the adaptive behaviors I developed growing up in a family of ten kids with one bathroom:
The early bird gets the shower.
I figure if I take my turn at 5:00 am, there won't be anyone pounding on the door--only a crazy person gets up that early on a summer morning.
I am the crazy person.
So the last morning I was there, I stepped out of the shower and realized I had forgotten to grab my towel off the clothesline. I was faced with the choice of using the same towel that had been hanging there in the bathroom throughout the entire reunion--
the towel used to dry the hands and possibly faces and who knows what else of all my closest relations on my Mother's side.
Or, I could think of something else.
I figured there were clean towels somewhere in the house, but where?
The pink towel looked big enough to wrap around me while I looked in the cupboards right outside the bathroom door. It was still pitch dark outside and I didn't hear a sound of anyone stirring, so I wrapped up and did a fast open and look-see in the four cupboards.
Toilet paper.
Soap.
Shampoo.
I don't remember.
But I didn't see any towels.

My next option was to get my towel off the clothesline. It was only a few steps to the back door, and then a quick grab and I could get back in with my dignity intact and dry off with my own towel. There was just one problem, well, two problems.
First, the back door.

The concrete that was poured to be the threshold is a little less than level which makes it difficult to open the door under ideal circumstances, let alone when one hand is occupied holding onto one's dignity by holding tightly to a towel. I pushed and kicked and wiggled the door--all while trying not to wake the dead.
Just as I got it open, I saw my cousin step out of the tent trailer.
There would only be one place she was headed and that was the one place I had to be in order to not be left standing in my bare essentials in the hall wrapped in a towel.
You would have been amazed at how fast I grabbed my towel and dashed back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. If the ten yard sprint while holding a towel around you to beat your cousin to the bathroom were an Olympic Sport I would have won the
GOLD MEDAL!

Overheard

At the recent Family Reunion:
Marshall: Hey Andy could you turn off the water for me.
Andy: Where is the spigot?
Marshall: Ummmm, just follow the hose...

Everyone waking up in the nearby tent trailer:
Hysterical laughter

Back to My Roots

During my growing up years, I was uprooted many times. I was a resilent child and adapted to the many changes in location, friends, and schools. But through all the changes in my life, there was one constant:
Ramah.
Ramah is the home of the forebears on my Mother's side. Those hardy Pioneers were sent out to colonize and to tame the wilderness. To give you an idea just how hardy they were--
after drought, famine, pestilence and a smallpox epidemic, many of the settlers packed it in and headed back to Utah.
But not my relations.
Some would call that stubborn and maybe a little crazy.
I like to call it Faith and Gumption.
They stayed and built up a little community. Not as showy as Salt Lake City maybe, and they don't have their own Temple yet. And the current citizens only recently got the streets paved. But it's my Mecca. I return there every few years to remind myself where I came from.
And it turns out, I came from the dirt.
So, I go back to the dirt and pitch a tent.
And I spend some quality time with some of the descendants of those stubborn Pioneers.
This is the first gathering since my Grandmother Idelle passed away last year.
We gathered at her house for our reunion just like we always have.
But she wasn't there and we had to carry on without her.

This is the home my Grandparents built-it started out as a two-room cabin and was added upon over the years as their family grew. My Aunt and her family bought the house and have worked hard to clean and repair it while keeping the essence of the home we all love and remember.

This bookcase was always filled with good books. Many of them have been passed along to family members as mementos.

My Grandmother's "Easy-Read" large number phone--with the numbers upside down.
It takes a little getting used to. You have to use this phone because there is NO cell phone coverage out in the middle of nowhere, which is where Ramah happens to be located.

I was happy to see the hollyhocks still growing in the very spot where my Grandmother showed my cousins and me how to make dolls out of the flowers when we were little girls. We amused ourselves for many a pleasant hour playing with our Hollyhock dolls.

The chicken coop where I learned to gather eggs and
I also learned to stay away from the mean old rooster.

The barn has been transformed into our family reunion Bistro--we took our meals al fresco out in the country air.

One of the contributors to the "country air"
Indoor plumbing is a luxury I don't take for granted!

I wrote a little skit about the "Courtship of Joe and Idelle". Our Grandparents' love story is sweet and funny. Here you see the climactic scene where Joe (AKA my nephew Spencer) is proposing to Idelle (AKA my cousin Tonya).

The other cast members were my niece, Alyssa and my cousin's daughter.
Their costumes were actually clothes that belonged to our Grandparents.
When we were going through the clothes to choose the ones we would use, I held a dress up and it smelled just like my Grandmother. And I spilled over with tears of sweet memories of a loving, feminine, strong, faithful woman who is my Grandmother. And my sister and my cousins and I all cried together as they comforted me and we were happy that we had such a Grandmother in our lives and we were all assured in our hearts that we will see her again.

Our reunion was held the weekend of Pioneer Day. Trust me, it's a big deal in Ramah. In Utah, it's a state holiday and in Ramah, New Mexico it's the biggest happening of the year.

Our contribution to the parade was a float showing our patriotism--something our Grandparents ingrained in us. The theme of the celebration was "All is Well"
Andy asked how big the parade was.
My cousin Colleen said: "We signed up late to have a float in the parade and we were second on the list."

But, in spite of our joking about it being the shortest parade in history, there were actually 4 floats (2 more even later entries than ours!), a huge tractor, a few horse-drawn carts, a little boy on a John Deere power wheel, and the entire fire and rescue squad. And the biggest crowd of people I have ever seen in Ramah. I was so stunned, I just kept looking and looking at the crowd of people lining the road and almost forgot to watch the parade.

After the parade there was a street fair that included all kinds interesting offerings. Including my cousin's pie stand with the above sign. I don't know about the cowpies but the cherry pie I bought was delicious.