This is part of an email I sent to a childhood friend that we communicate often. It is about the reunion I went to yesterday. And I thought out of pure laziness I could just copy and paste this to my blog! I edited some of the names.
we went to Reunion near Blairsville yesterday and Frances (my sister) went with us. It was very enjoyable. I got to see some people I got to know well through the years.
I haven't been to one in at least a dozen years and it was a harsh reminder that time stands still for no one. The reunion each year, since I been going, has been held on a campground owned by a distant cousin Tommy, a very hyper hard working guy that always wore overalls. He still had his overalls on but he had to sit around with an oxygen tank. I made a comment to him that it was great for him to own such a beautiful place that he worked so hard to keep it that way and he said, "I don't own it - it owns me.", grasping for breath.
Austine when I first met her was a big energetic woman, who was a principal at a high school in Athens for thirty plus years. By the looks of her I think she could probably whip anybody who crossed her path. Her husband George was a professor at UGA, died a couple of years ago... I used to enjoy talking to him at reunions... he liked to get off to the side or completely away by a hundred feet or so and read or something. I used to always hunt him down and we would have a little talk. The last time we talked he had just retired, he was upset because a person he knew to be sniveling rat beat him out to be head of department he was a prof in.... some type of social studies... he cried as he told me. He was really upset because they picked the wrong person for the job and the fact he retired because of it. He died a couple years ago.
Austine and I have been communicating for years on genealogy, but haven't much in the past several years... with kids growing up and moving out of the state she had
enough to do to keep up with them. But this year she was in a wheel chair and at times looked sad and other times looked like she was pain. I asked her sister what was wrong with her and she told me she had cancer of the brain. Later her son, a college professor in California told me she fell and broke her hip.... so which is it? I wondered.
Probably both.
Austine had a care-giver with her, a black lady with a Jamaican accent. When not attending Austine she preferred to sit by herself up on a little hill.
More about Austine in a minute.
Another little guy, Thomas, a little guy, very laid back, lives 7 miles outside of Asheville, NC., who always has the handshake of someone who doesn't really mean it, no grip power at all when you shake... it is more like he is presenting his hand for you to shake. He told me his wife had died. Now he had a big wild mustache. Completely out of character for him. Thomas introduced me to his "friend" - a middle age woman with a thick scratch female smoker's voice. He told me about the last time I was there what I picked out to eat, some of the things I said, something his wife said to me and what I responded with, and reminded me of two witty things I said. I felt my privacy was invaded - somebody remembering that much about me, who prefers to blend in.
He told me he is retired and I made the comment that I bet he is like the rest of
us, more busy than when he was working. He looked at me and said, "No. I don't do nothing."
The food was good. I thought we would be unique bringing a bucke of KFC (Original) to a family of mostly rural folks who valued their home recipes, but we were one of three who brought buckets of KFC. There were some declicious home made fried chicken, something beefy, a lot of variations of green beans, fried trout, different kinds of potato salads and desserts.
By a head count this year's president announced between seventy-eight and ninety five people were there. A lot of kids were running back and forth to the lake or to the stables, so it was hard to make everybody stay in one place to be counted.
It took me two reunions in the past to learn not to wear shorts. After the 2nd time seeing I was the only person over 15 years old with shorts on, I might be looked on as an odd-ball, or sore thumb, I started wearing Levis', which I did this year also. But, although they didn't wear shorts, the men didn't wear dress shirts and ties neither. One old man wore a dress shirt and tie. He is a distanct cousin - I heard him tell more than a couple of people that he was a state represenative and his biggest priority at the present was to get Georgia state Patrolmen a raise. Go for it!
I said Time stands still for no one" is not entirely true. Also there was
Dora. A very graceful lady, retired school teacher, full of wit and giggled like a little girl, that turned 101 years old last winter. She hasn't seen me in at least 12 years and she walked up to me, with the help of a hand cane, and said, "Eddie Hunter! I'm glad you graced us with your appearance again!" and gave me a big hug. And she did other people - call them by name and hug them. I think that cane kept her balance more than anything. She hadn't changed since the last time I saw her. One old hag came up to her, which was her niece, they were comparing walking canes, they both looked alike, polished wood with a silver handle, she asked her niece, "Want to sword fight?" And let out a big horse laugh.
One lady came up to Dora and presented her with her five granddaughters, saying to Dora, "They are all my granddaughters" Dora looked at her, "Opal, you aren't nearly that ugly!" Which cracked me up. Dora looked over at me and laughed and nodded, like she and I were the only that got that one.
Anna wondered why she said such a thing. I said she was playing a little game of the old people - saying anything they damn well pleased.
Dora spent a very long time teaching. She taught my late neighbor Harold Killian, who died an old man when I had my heart attack. In the Atlanta Journal- Constitution this past winter was an article about her and a scholarship program at Truett McConnell College in Cleveland, Georgia, started in her name.
When I first met Dora she struck as almost flirty... to men, she has a developed
art of talking very seductive and in a manner that you and her are the only people that mattered. As bet as a teacher many a teenage boy let off a little steam thinking about her.
Austine's son invited us to follow them back to the old homeplace.
We followed them down several very long, narrow, and winding country roads and we call beautiful meadows, pastures, crop rows, beautiful houses and barns, but mostly trees and trees with no kind of subdivisions, buildings, apartments, condos... just rolling hillsides with beautifully composed trees... it was God's country, completely away from the hustling-bustling Metro Atlanta.
The old home place was built in 1840. It is a big two-story job with two
fireplaces, and as I told you the front room has several bullet holes from a family ruckus years ago. They are trying to restore it to put it back in its original condition. They are staying in a little house built on to the main house. The first room was the house itself in 1840. The upstairs and the kitchen were added later.
My g-g grandfather Jason H. Hunter and his father, my g-g-g grandfather, who
lived about a mile away, I'm sure stood in that very first front room with the bullet holes, and may have even help build it.
Outside surrounding the house is a huge plowed area with hundreds of rows of
little green sprouts standing - which I think it is corn, she same as it was
in August in the early '80s when I first visited the house.
We talked for about an hour about just about everything, then I looked at my
watch and it was 4pm. Marietta was two hours away, and the next day is a
work day so we would go to bed early, so we said our goodbyes. We enjoyed
our visit with them and I think they did too.
Frances, my sister, said she really loved the whole day. A good time was had by all (burp!).
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