The Family Reunion

This is Tuesday morning and Sherri was up bright and early...well it was not bright outside and whether she was bright or not I could not tell I still had my eyes closed...it was 4:00am just a tad before I normally raise my head up. Randy was going to be by early to pick her up so they could get to the job early and then return early this day.

One thing I can say about these last few weeks of working is that not having to go in early has been nice. Getting up when I wake up and not with an alarm clock has been nice. There is just something about getting up in the "Natural" way that makes the whole day so much more pleasant.

Moving right along...I have some pictures of the get together Sherri's family had in Louisiana last week. I am just now getting around to posting it. I have been doing other things so this post had been put on the back burner. I was unable to go to this reunion because of work but Sherri road with her brothers over there last Saturday morning. By the way I guess I should clarify this....Sherri has five brothers and one sister. I know you hear of me say Sherri's brother all the time but when you have five of them it gets confusing. Her brothers in order of birth are Billy Rodney Danny Richard Randy and her sister Molly. I did not have brothers so when I married Sherri I had five brothers right out of the shoot.

Her Mother's side of the family were all Thomas and her Dad's were Turners. Her Mother's grandfather was a Bamburg...yes of Bamburg Germany fame...and Bamburg S. C. Jenny this is where I am beginning the family thing....HE HE. I have a ways to go but it is a start. Jenny is my friend from Washington State that is putting together her family tree and she is going to help me get started as soon as I meet up with her this summer...I hope.

Anyway that is another post for later. The pictures below are of the reunion that the Thomas family had. They have this every year in April down in the country at the old home place and the family cemetery. This is where Sherri and I will have our headstone....whether we will be laid to rest here or not is still up in the air.

The one thing that I think about the most is the distance my kids have put between their history and the present. It worries me that they don't attend the family reunions the way our parents and our parents parents did. This is all we have in life is our families and we need to keep everyone in our family together so that future generations will have a record of who they came from and where they came from. It is sad to think that if they don't carry on the family reunion that one day it will all be grown over and no one will remember from whence they came. I care about that so much but the now generation is so full of themselves that they have lost that since of purpose that once was a part of all families. I guess in general that is what has happened to our country....we have lost a part of our past that made us what we are today. I can't say it enough...we should stop at least once a year and look back and remember our family and teach each generation coming up where they came from and what the folks were like back in those days and let them know what happened in the past that brought them to the present.

This is one of the things that I hope this journal does. I hope that somehow my children and my grandchildren will pass this down so that they will all know who I was and what I was all about. Not that it will be a life changing force for them to know this but it will be an understanding of what happened in my life that directly effected their lives generations later. If I could do anything with the life that I have left it would be to get my children to take part in this process and keep the past alive so that our future will know about it.

When I retire and start my travels much of my journal entries will be about this. I hope it does not turn people away from reading me...but it makes them think of their own past and how important it is to let your future generations know about it.

This is the family cemetery located on the Thomas land in Louisiana where Sherri and I will retire from this life.

This is Sherri's Mother and Father's grave site. The family reunion was very important to them all their years here on earth. Sherri and I intend on keeping up that remembrance in their honor.

This is just a small portion of the family. As I said so many younger members of the family...for what ever the reason no longer attend. It is sad that they are missing out on visiting with their family.

I must tell you about the picture that leads off this post. This is the old home place down in the country. Sherri's Mom and Dad lived here long ago and Sherri and her brothers lived her also. Well you can see that it is rather old and run down but once it was what so many called home. This my dear family and friends is history that one day will be lost if we do not keep it alive....

Somewhere in Time