Thursday, July 31, 2014

Family Reunion

While in Morgan Hill, we got to attend the 24th annual Walker-Tallmon reunion. That's Jenny's family. It was small this year, with only about 180 people in attendance.

This time around, people seemed glad to see me. Last time we went, they whited me and my kids out of the family tree. We had a fun time, eating food, talking, watching old people be weird. We also celebrated the 100th birthday of one of the original family members. The last one, if I'm correct.

The reunion was held in Swanton which is close to Santa Cruz. Jenny turned on Siri (I hate Siri) and asked it to direct us to Davenport which is not where the family reunion was. Swanton is north of Davenport. So every time we drove past Davenport, Siri told us what to do. Which was turn around and go back to Davenport.

Using skills developed after years of investigative reporting and child abuse investigations, I finally figured out that Jenny had not changed Siri's destination and we were doomed to circle around this tiny town. I turned Siri off, and Jenny drove right to the reunion. She has been to Swanton many times, and knows exactly where the place is.

Of those 180 or so people, most of them were Jenny's cousins. Some were also double cousins. Those happen when siblings from one family marry siblings from another. Don't even try to understand this. This is a family with 12 kids, each of whom had a passel of kids of their own,  Jenny is the oldest of her generation, but there are members of the previous generation who are younger than she is. This is why I just call them all Uncle Benny.

Random photo of the day:


This is oleander. It grows everywhere. It is deadly poisonous. (Think Arsenic and Old Lace..the old ladies used oleander in the tea they used to murder some guy.) Do Californians have a death wish?

3 comments:

  1. When we discovered Oleander in the backyard on a home we bought, we immediately removed it as did nto want the dogs to eat it and die!

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  2. Why else would someone choose to live in California?

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  3. Philosophical question of the day, when a plant situated along freeways for air pollution control also has no attractive fragrance or flavor, is it still poisonous?

    ReplyDelete