White Family Reunion 2008
We went to the White Family reunion in Windsor at Green’s Cross baptist church today with my wife’s family. The food was good, but the spirit of the gathering has definitely suffered from the loss of Nana, Paw-paw and some of the other people who really made the reunion what it was. A lot of the younger generation didn’t show up at all, and everyone there really noticed just how empty the place felt with all the vacant seats. No one really hung around, the game of kickball Wes tried to organize fizzled into an impromptu dodge ball match, and then then fizzled into nothing. The whole thing was over in just a couple hours when it used to last all day long.
It really seems like the whole idea of close-knit extended families is falling by the wayside. It’s a damn shame too, because a lot of younger people nowadays really need the support of their family, with the rising cost of living, the economy tanking, and childcare being outrageously expensive.
A few ideas were floated to try and draw the younger generation back to the fold. Things like making sure there’s more activities for the younger crowd, changing the date to a Saturday instead of Sunday, maybe giving away a doorprize or two, and even possibly moving the reunion a bit farther north, closer to where the newer generations live. Hopefully that will work out, other wise there might not be much hope for this kind of family gathering a few years from now.
On the other hand, Maybe this isn’t so much the “end” of the tradition, but maybe more of a “passing of the torch”. I’ve always said Wes would end up being the next Nana as time went on, and maybe I was right. Maybe we can re-establish this reunion as a Culp/Mizzelle/van den Brink reunion closer to the state line. Maybe as time passes we can work on trying to instill the value of knowing your family and their history to the younger generations. I dunno, maybe I’m overthinking this, but I really hope we can start our own thing here in the next few years and turn this all around. I certainly hope so.
You can catch a gallery of the images after the jump:
