Not quite, but that's the feeling on the Monday after the last week or so of ever increasing numbers of relatives arriving from far and wide. At this moment, there is a carload of Newcombs rolling across Kansas (I am guessing, although if I were Charles I would know exactly where they are because he is always monitoring the whereabouts of those who let him), heading for Denver. And another carload of Newcombs rolling up the New Jersey Turnpike heading for Boston. And in the last 24 hours there have been multiple airplanes heading to Boston, carrying smaller numbers of Newcombs.
Just as I suspected, our lack of planning -- except for food and venue -- did not turn out to be a problem. Activities spontaneously arose, and Anna and Gordon had prepared for a few cooking projects, which were successfully executed. We ate all the bread that was baked throughout the day but there are boxes and boxes of peach/ginger jam and blackberry jam and blackberry/peach jam. Well, I didn't help at all with that, but I think those are the varieties that were boiled up and sealed.
We officially started the reunion with a big group dinner on Friday night, and ended this morning with smaller group breakfasts. Plenty of eating and cooking and cleaning up. All very jolly, as Sarah Newcomb would say.
The spontaneous activities might have been the most memorable, in the end. Benjamin recently decided that he wanted to turn his nice head of hair into dreadlocks. So the cousins did not quite enough research and started in on the project. It ended up taking 40 cousin hours, all on Saturday. All day long, they sat in a huddle around Benjamin's head, taking small tails of long hair and braiding/back-combing/teasing it. They took turns, some lasting longer than others. They watched lots of movies. They bonded. Some of the hair dressers got actual blisters on their fingers. And they all said they would never do that again, although they also agreed it was a good task for a group. It was fun to see all those second cousins piled together, working and laughing and talking.
The younger cousins were very intrigued by the golf carts and after a few staid lessons they were were allowed to drive all around the farm by themselves. It was a Saturday, thank goodness, so there were no actual work needs for the golf carts. All the workers were at market, no one was in the fields. So for a good part of the day, there were youngsters careening around on the farm roads.
While they were out picking blackberries, Nancy, Carrie's youngest, asked enough questions that it became clear that she really had no idea about the farm and Blueberry Hill and how it all fits together. So Anna said we should be sure to tell that story. Then I decided it would be even more useful for us to tell our story to each other, like at Passover, the origin story. So before lunch we made everyone gather around one big table and listen and we told the story of our grandparents and how they met and on up the line. Sarah Newcomb started, Anna picked it up, I added more, and then Mom told the story of meeting our dad, along with some other interesting sidelines. The kids were polite and listening quietly. Next time others can pick up the tale and tell about their own branches of the tree. We only stayed on the main trunk.
Oh yes, at the very beginning of the day we each got up and introduced ourselves and showed where we fit on the nice tree that SN had made and kept up to date. And we put on our new Newcomb Reunion T-shirts and went outside to take the group picture before getting our shirts all dirty. Indeed, by the end of the day we were all rather stained and rumpled.
We were surprised to note that Michael (Anna's youngest) and Robby (Owen's oldest) looked remarkably similar. From the back it was hard to tell them apart. Throughout the day, various people mistook them for each other. Once when everyone was piled on the couch watching a Bourne movie, Anna jumped back when she realized she had been playing with Robby's hair. Michael was sitting on a different couch. Robby said he had been wondering what was going on.
Because we were all in the Common House most of the day, almost everyone had a chance to wander off and take a nap at some point. I saw cousins napping on couches throughout the day. It was perfect. The youngest one, who is four, had more needs for roaming and activity and he took his nap in a quieter house.
Anna had posted a non-linear cloud of suggestions of what we might do all day, and we got through almost all of them. We didn't sew but we did everything else. By late afternoon the eight first cousins were all in the same space so we got started on singing. As the years go by we lose more of the lyrics and some of the harmonies, but we all know so many songs by heart, from singing together for over ten years, summer after summer. We sang our favorites (we finally realized we only have SAB, no T, never have), sometimes more than once. Sto Mi E Milo remains the crowd favorite, followed closely by Down On My Knees (which Anna finally noticed is really religious) and Though Philomela Lost Her Love... Next time, if we can get our acts together, we will try to learn a new song. Our voices have always blended nicely since we come from the same gene pool. After an hour or so, we started to run out of voice and repertoire, and Jon had dinner all ready for us, so it was time to eat again.
It is always hard to anticipate how much effort it takes to feed 35 people, especially over several meals. We do it ourselves, and it reminds us what caterers do for a living -- lots of cleaning up afterwards. Luckily Alissa and Anna and Gordon and Jon stayed on top of the cooking, and many of us are good at cleaning. Alissa made a different peach dessert every night of the week, Anna and Gordon kept us well supplied with sandwich material, Jon sweated at the grill and cooked up great hamburgers provided by Lani's neighbor.
Last night I was supposed to be at choir rehearsal at 7 PM but I sent the director a note saying I would be late as we had not yet wrapped up the reunion. While an energetic group went out contra dancing, others of us stayed behind and cleaned up after dinner and sat down for a quick debrief -- what did we like, what will we do next time, what should we make sure to do again. And then I went off to choir and tried really hard to stay awake.
I don't have any of the photos, but when I get one, I will add it to this post. There was a great deal of documentation, including Sarah's lifelong habit of video recording, which we all take for granted. She is the keeper of the family archives. If we had been more organized, we would have made sure to have a working projector on site. But we did that at the last reunion, so it's not like we haven't seen the films lately of Grandpa and Grandma canoeing in the flood below Glen Echo in the 1930s. We will see them again.
All very jolly.
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